The XCOM Effect
by Havocfrost
Summary: 2183: Humanity has survived second contact, but now Eden Prime burns and the ancient boogeymen of Earth's past are set to destroy the fragile place Humanity has earned. Beset on all sides by indifferent allies and hostile alien races, only one man can bring the galaxy back from the brink and unite the disparate species against the real foe threatening them all.
1. Prologue

Eerie blackness punctuated by beads of white and yellow and thousands of specs of cyan blue characterised the space around the Sol System Relay. The natural illuminations of a billion visible stars interlaced with the engine trails of hundreds of ships lit up the space surrounding the tuning fork shaped structure and the dwarf planet Pluto that served as its gravitational anchor. The illumination those lights provided were suddenly swept aside as the relay came closer into view of a rapidly approaching craft, calculations and specifications fed to its internal systems.

_"The Arcturus Prime relay is in range, initiating transmission sequence."_

The voice of pilot Jeff "Joker" Moreau ran through the length of the ship, calm and collected as he manoeuvred the frigate towards the relay.

The stairs rose to meet Lieutenant Commander Shepard as he made his way to the nerve center of the _EDS_ _Normandy,_ the Command Deck housing the Bridge and Combat information Center. A triangular railed section surrounding a large hologram of the Milky Way dominated the room of wall mounted blue lit consoles and their operators. The crew present were a mix of Marines and Naval crewmen. The former outfitted with grey and forest green armour plating mixed with small hexagonal ceramic segments that moved fluidly with their bodily motions, while their faces were obscured by helmets that only revealed their eyes and the bridge of their noses. The latter were drabbed in light grey and gold hardsuits that included a retractable brever that served as a mask that could enclose the lower half of their head and supply oxygen in case of a ship section breach.

"_Relay is hot, acquiring approach vector."_

Both Marines and crewmen saluted him as he made his way along the green lit floor towards the bow. The galaxy map hologram has dissipated upon his entering the room, replaced by a map of the Sol system and the nearby ship traffic. Hundreds of green blips highlighted the flow of interstellar traffic from the nearby colonial systems, though he took note of the disproportionate amount of military vessels travelling along a route similar to theirs from Mars.

_"All stations secure for transit."_

The crew assigned to monitor the various internal systems that formed the sum of the _Normandy's _parts kept a close eye on the various readings the holographic screens projected. Heat sinks, weapon systems, engine temperatures, Elerium power generation and other new, expensive and mostly classified components were all watched with cautious eyes as they prepared for the imminent faster than light jump.

Shepard walked past the railing guarding the central hologram and returned a hasty salute from Navigator Pressly who quickly returned to his task of ensuring the NAV system was correctly calibrated.

_"Board is Green. Approach run has begun."_

The ship hummed as the quartet of engines that propelled the Normandy rearranged into a more enclosed formation, reducing the size of the mass effect field encasing the ship. She resembled a long rectangular dagger bolstered by the four wing strut mounted engines, slicing through the vacuum of space. Her hull bristled with batteries of high intensity GARDIAN lasers on either side while her front half housed the two heavy duty Apollo anti ship lasers and the singular long range mass accelerator. Her underside sported four pods that linked with the lower bay sections and housed the compliment of four XFS-142 Rapier fighter craft as well as the Sentinel pattern MEC suits for the onboard heavy assault team.  
Shepard had seen her full form when he'd arrived at the Mars shipyards and the first thought that had entered his mind had been the diversity of the roles she seemed able to undertake.

Shepard made his way through the crew corridor and towards the frigate's small bridge. The view of the nearby stars became visible through the series of screens that surrounded the _Normandy'_s nose. They were displaying the view of the external cameras as the structural weakness posed by placing old fashioned windows there instead had been judged to be too great by EDC engineers.

_"Hitting the relay in three . . ."_

The true size of the relay and its defenses became apparent as it crept closer and closer. Brilliant luminescence projected by the huge mass effect engine drowned out all other sources of light around the two kilometer long structure. Surrounding it were the vessels of the First Fleet, more than one hundred ships of the line supported by eight _Constellation_ class Dreadnoughts. Massive ship killers equipped with two devastating Thanatos spinal lasers and a single conventional mass accelerator. Humanity had lost a third of its population when the Ethereals attacked Earth nearly two centuries earlier due to inadequate defenses. That problem had since been rectified.

_"Two. . ."_

The Handshake between the onboard VI and the relay resulted in a tendril of light to arc out from the relay core and engulf the _Normandy_. Piloting instruments flared and sensor systems compensated as the relay took over from the Tantalus drive core and opened an interstellar corridor to the Arcturus system. The hull cameras automatically powered down as the light filters became unable to cope, shutting off the bridge's view of the spectacle.

_"One. . ."_

A shudder of intense vibrations reverberated throughout the ship as it was flung through the corridor of mass-free space. The kinetic barriers flickered and shone as the tremendous mass effect engine launched them from the Sol system to another some thirty six point six light years away from Earth.

Shepard shook off the sudden feeling of nausea and checked his surroundings. All seemed intact and no one had had their limbs fused to the deck and by the looks of things the pre jump tension prevalent in the crew's behaviour had more or less vanished, their faces less solemn and more relieved. Not bad for a first time jump.  
_  
_"Thrusters, check." The calm and businesslike voice of Joker began his standard end of jump checklist as the _Normandy_'s quartet of engines rearranged to their standard sublight configuration. His bearded face and flight cap illuminated by the half dozen holographic screens he was thoughtlessly manipulating, giving him a warm glow in the face of the orange holographic light.

"Navigation, check." The outer view of space was restored as the exterior hull cameras came back online. "Internal emission sinks engaged. All systems online." He paused as he drew a local cluster map to his waist. "Drift. . . Just under fifteen hundred K."

"Fifteen hundred is good; your Captain will be pleased." From behind came the voice of a predator, sharp, metallic and crisp. The tall, avian form of Nihlus Kryik stood apart from Shepard clad in the black and crimson armour of Turian design. His face tattooed in the bone white pattern of the Mercenary outpost he was born on while the shape of his armour over his natural exoskeleton seemed to exaggerate his presence.

He turned to leave, glancing towards Shepard and nodding before proceeding down the corridor, footsteps audible even over the hum of activity around him.

"I hate that guy." Joker visibly relaxed, removing his cap and running his hand through his messy hair before returning it and continuing with his manipulations of the holographic screens.

"Nihlus just gave you a compliment . . . so you hate him?" The level tone of Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko carried over from the co pilot seat, an undertone of disapproval evident in the sentence.

"Look," Joker said annoyed, not bothering to look over. "You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom, that's good. I just shot us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead, so that's incredible! Besides," He shifted in his chair "Spectres are bad business, we only just got accepted as an associate member to the council and already we've got cloak and dagger dinosaurs skulking around on an EDC ship."

"You're paranoid" Kaidan replied. "The council helped fund this project; they have a right to keep an eye on their investment. Especially after all the fuss we put up about our joining the Citadel."

"Yeah but this is a shakedown run, not some cheesy spec ops suicide mission. You want to tell me that they send spectres on the shakedown run of every new ship they build? Pull my other leg, it's more likely to break" Joker stated dismissively.

Shepard subconsciously agreed with Joker. Something was definitely not right with this mission, the extra security procedures and how everyone had seemed to keep things under wraps since before they even left the Mars shipyards definitely didn't sit right. To some degree he could argue that all the security had been due to the _Normandy _itself. The prototype vessel was an ice breaker and a requirement under the terms of the Earth Defense Coalition joining the Citadel.

Said terms had not been easily negotiated. The Council had recognised the military prowess of the Human military after they had successfully liberated the occupied colony of Shanxi from the Turian Hierarchy in the Second Contact War, driving them back and launching raids on the colony of Antirum where the invasion force was thought to have originated. The enraged Turians had geared up for war but were stopped by the timely intervention of the Citadel, brokering a peace between the two races and introducing Humanity to the galactic community.

Only very recently had the EDC been allowed to become an associate member of the Citadel and only just, given the circumstances. The _Normandy _was just as much an olive branch as it was a warship.

"Joker's right, they don't send Spectres on shakedown runs." Shepard cut in on the bickering between the two, earning a smug grin and a nod from Joker.

"I told you, there's more going on here than they're-"

"_Joker," _The voice of Captain David Anderson came over the intercom and all three of them ceased talking reflexively. "_Status report."_

"Just cleared the mass relay, Captain," He replied, cool and proud. "Stealth Systems engaged, everything looks solid."

"_Good," _Anderson remarked. "_Find a comm buoy and link us into the network. I want reports relayed back to Mars Brass before we reach Eden Prime."_

"Aye-aye, Captain," Joker replied. "Better brace yourself, sir. I think Nihlus is headed your way"

"_He's already here, Lieutenant."_ Shepard saw Joker cringe and pinch the bridge of his nose at the Captains reply while Kaidan quietly chuckled at the pilot's discomfort. "_Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a briefing."_

"I'm on my way" Shepard replied hastily. "Both of you try to settle down before we reach Eden Prime, we'll know what we're here for soon enough." With that he started back down the corridor towards the briefing room.

The statement put to bed any further conversation that Shepard could hear as he marched down the crew corridor towards the CIC. He power walked towards his destination, nearly breaking into a jog before mentally stopping himself. No foreknowledge of the mission objectives and the fact that only himself, Anderson and Nihlus were called for the briefing, not the usual roster of those at the head of the ships various departments such as engineering and navigation had left him on edge.

As he walked by he overheard Navigator Pressly discussing the same subject with someone over the ships private intercom. "He just walked by, like he was on a mission."

_"He's a Spectre, they're always on a mission,"_ Shepard heard the deep bass tone of who he assumed was engineer Adams, the head of the _Normandy's_ engineering section. "_You should relax Pressly, you'll give yourself an ulcer."_

Shepard slowed down and diverted towards the Navigator as he closed the Comm channel, the latter nodding towards Shepard as he did so.

"Status, Lieutenant?" Being stationed where he was and with a direct line to all sections of the ship, Pressly had an accurate gauge on the crew's mindset and Shepard decided that it would be an excellent time to get a description of the crew's concerns.

"Looks like we had a smooth run, Commander," Pressly replied whilst saluting. "Engineering, Navigation and Weapons reporting nothing too shaken by the jump. All defensive systems are reporting green across the board and our Apollo's are still within their required accuracy parameters." He grunted. "The Elerium generators and Tantalus drive core are all at one hundred percent and the stealth system is performing beautifully."

"Good to hear," He returned the salute. "I heard you discussing our Turian guest. You have some concerns?"

"Well. . . It's just that none of this makes any logical sense." Pressly said.

"Having a Spectre on a shakedown run isn't normal, I agree with you there." Shepard replied.

"It's not just that," Pressly remarked before glancing over his shoulder. "If this is a standard shakedown run then why are we fully stocked and staffed? A skeleton crew of engineers could perform just as well at this task so why do we have two platoons of Marines and a fully equipped Sentinel squad?"

Pressly paused as another crewman walked by, continuing once he was out of ear shot. "And then there's Captain Anderson. He's a war hero and one of the best soldiers we have. Why have such a high profile public figure come with if secrecy is the goal here?" He asked, not understanding the reasoning behind it.

"I noticed that as well and it doesn't add up." Shepard replied, relieved that his presumptions of paranoia were not unfounded. "I'll talk with the Captain and see what's up. Carry on Lieutenant."

"Aye-aye, sir." Pressly replied as Shepard continued on towards the rearward briefing room behind the CIC, now more than just interested in finding concrete answers.

The briefing room was the most secure and Turian like aspect of the Ship. Cavernous with angled walls and a variety of counterintelligence software securing any conversation that took place from curious eyes and ears. It held enough seats for the heads of every department aboard the _Normandy_ yet today; its only occupant was Nihlus.

He was viewing what Shepard deduced were plains and forests of a garden world before jumping to images of the continent sprawling metropoli of Earth. He finally switched to an orbital view of the rapidly greening equator of Mars and the vast urban sprawls propping up over various parts of it before turning off the hologram all together.

"Commander Shepard," He turned and faced Shepard, who by now had met him half way into the room. "I was hoping you would be the first to get here. It will give us a chance to talk." His mandibles flickered briefly.

"What about? And where's Captain Anderson?" Shepard quizzed, crossing his arms.

"The Captain will be along shortly. I'm interested in this world we're headed to, Eden Prime. I've heard your species regards it as a chance at something better and a jump off point into the Traverse." He paced from either side of the room and Shepard swore he was sizing him up.

"I haven't been personally but I hear it's a paradise. For humans at least." Shepard replied.

"Yes, so I've heard. The paranoia over alien influence that your species exhibits is fascinating to some while cause for concern to others. Some say you're no better than the Batarians while others are cautiously optimistic about your place in the galaxy." Nihlus came to a halt directly facing Shepard.

"We don't enslave people nor do we sponsor pirates," Shepard replied angrily. "And you'd be hard pressed to not be paranoid when you've been attacked and almost wiped out twice for no apparent reason."

Nihlus' put up his hands in defense "Relax Commander, though these are the views of some I do not share them. I see the potential in a species that has the ability to defend against and then launch a counteroffensive against the Hierarchy. Many are simply afraid of change and that is why they fear your rapid advancement." His steely voice was calm and collected despite Shepard's outburst.

"Not everyone who fights the Hierarchy ends up like the Krogan or the Volus." Shepard retorted.

"True but there are very few examples of such races. Many of the Primarchs still howl for blood after what your fleets did to Antirum but that was thirty years ago, I'm interested in the here and now."

"Is there a point to this conversation?" Shepard quizzed, annoyed by the history lesson.

"I just wanted to dispel any misconceptions you may have about me, Commander. Though I may be a Turian, I don't despise your species and I'd like to ensure that we can work together, without having to worry about a gun at our backs." He offered out his hand, and as far as Shepard's limited knowledge about Turian body language was concerned, he was being honest.

Still, old habits die hard and he hesitated momentarily before taking Nihlus' hand in his own, both men shook with a firm grip but neither clenched more than was necessary.

"Glad to hear it. Not all humans hate aliens, at least not in the Navy. Despite our differences, I have nothing but respect for you. You're disciplined, efficient soldiers and you get the job done. To me, that's cause for cooperation, not hate." Shepard remarked honestly.

Nihlus stepped back before his mandibles parted in a Turian smile. "Likewise Commander, I look forward to working with you." The familiar hiss of the door opening caused both to face it and watch as Captain Anderson entered the room. His grey and yellow Navy uniform still shone in the low light and Shepard snapped a salute that he promptly returned. Nihlus simply nodded out of respect.

"Good, you're both here. Nihlus, I think it's about time we told the Commander what's really going on here." The words flowed off his tongue with a hint of an English accent and Nihlus once again nodded.

The Spectre walked over towards the nearby console and pulled up an image of one of Eden Prime's major cities, creatively named New Eden. He then zoomed out towards a spot just a few kilometers away from the city outskirts. A series of alien looking ruins encompassed the entire screen. Oval shaped structures with dozens of human workers diligently unearthing and cataloguing each new artefact.

"Commander, Eden Prime may be many things to Humanity but recently it has become a world of great importance, both politically and scientifically, for the whole galaxy." Nihlus stated.

"Those are Prothean ruins, like the ones back on Mars." Shepard stated, knowing the value of intact and working Prothean technology.

Such technology had allowed the EDC to jumpstart the terraforming efforts of Mars during the mid twenty first century. A hundred years later and the Martian equator had turned into a habitable zone and allowed billions of people to leave Earth and settle not just on Mars, but on the dozens of extra solar colonies humanity had founded since the integration of Mass effect tech and the discovery of the Charon relay. The Ethereal invasion of Earth in 2015 had utterly decimated the Human population, but the reverse engineering of Elerium and other alien technologies kick-started the interstellar efforts of Earth's nations who banded together into an exploratory, economic and military coalition.

"Correct." Anderson said, continuing in place of Nihlus. "A month ago, a construction company planning to build a new solar array discovered these ruins during a round of ground suitability testing." Anderson flicked through some images, showing the initial photos taken at the scene.  
"After the discovery, an EDC archaeological team commandeered the site and began excavating. Two days ago, they found this."

Another image flickered to life on the screen. It was a tall monolithic object, glowing with lines of green energy that ran along electric veins along its side while it seemed to be shrouded in a barely visible aura of thin mist.

"The local science team has been unable to access it but they've theorised that it's some form of data cache, a beacon of sorts." Anderson explained. His voice seemed calm but Shepard detected hints of anxiety underneath it all. An anxiety provoked by the literally alien implications of the device.

"This is huge Shepard; a discovery like this could jumpstart our technology two hundred years, like what the Mars archives did. But neither Eden Prime nor the EDC have the experience or facilities to study something like this." Anderson stated and Shepard now understood the reasons behind all the secrecy and extra security. Something like this could be worth a war for some.

Although the EDC had made huge leaps in technology such as power generation with synthetic Elerium and with other technology such as genetic modification and laser weaponry, it was still extremely new to the intricacy and vast possibilities of ME tech. Only after exhaustive negotiations with the council regarding associate membership and only after huge concessions were made by both sides as to trading certain technologies and naval restrictions did the EDC finally become a part of the citadel in 2181. An intact Prothean beacon delivered in good faith could help loosen some restrictions and also give the EDC some serious political capital.

"Obviously this goes beyond mere human interests, Commander," Nihlus stepped forward to stand side to side with Anderson, the lights running through his crimson armour turning patches of the Captain's uniform a dark maroon. "This discovery could affect every species in Citadel space."

"And I assume you're here to make sure that we don't accidentally "misplace" it?" Shepard held his fingers in the form of air quotes, sarcastically highlighting the lack of trust both sides had when it came to the other.

"Not exactly how I'd put it but yes. There are political elements behind the Councillors that feel that the EDC is far too autonomous for your own good and they pushed hard to ensure that a Spectre was sent as "quality assurance" when the beacon was to be retrieved." Nihlus mimicked the air quote motion that Shepard had made though it was rather comical given that he only had three fingers.

"Of course, trust isn't the only concern. The Terminus Systems and the Hegemony are at the forefront of our exterior threats list." Anderson interrupted before Shepard could reply.

"Either of them attacks and it's war. We already showed the Batarians what happens when we're provoked." Shepard hit his open palm with his fist. He'd been on Elysium when the Skyllian Blitz hit and he'd been present for the series of large scale assaults on the nearby Pirate worlds responsible. The retribution had been swift, merciless and absolutely devastating, sending a clear message to the Hegemony and the Terminus that attacks on Human worlds would end in the assailants being less likely to strike rich and more likely to be boiled alive under dreadnought grade laser bombardment.

"A discovery of this magnitude might be worth it for some and then there's always the threat of terrorist groups counting on obscurity to mask their identities." The Terminus wasn't just home to independent planets and species but to a whole encyclopaedia worth of mercs and separatist movements willing to risk such an attack, in spite of the EDC's recent advertisements as to why that was a bad idea.

"So what's our plan for retrieval?" Shepard asked, crossing his arms over his silver armoured hard suit.

"We'll be dropped off at the dig site; there the Marines guarding the beacon will transfer it over to us where we will then return with it to the _Normandy." _Nihlus explained.

"Sounds easy enough."

"Few missions are, the only real concern I have is-"

"_Captain!," _Joker's cut in over the intercom "_We're picking up a distress call from Eden Prime. You better see this."_ Shepard heard the raspy and alarmed tone of the pilot as the three of them stood in silence for a half second before Anderson responded.

"Put it up on the main screen."

A second passed by and the display shifted to show a clearing under heavy bombardment. The evening sky was stained a blood red and charcoal black with artillery and rocket fire marking and engaging a target off-screen. The camera suddenly dropped as a nearby explosion rocked the screen and as the visual feed went black, the sound of battle was amplified. The whine of rapid laser fire and guttural thuds of heavy mass accelerators were suddenly drowned out by the crack of railgun fire.

The video feed was suddenly restored as one of the soldiers must have picked it up, shifting it to display the glittering city of New Eden in the background and the hills surrounding it, both now pockmarked with signs of battle. Shepard saw the armour of the troops under fire, most clad in the grey and blue tone heavy powered armour synonymous with the EDC. The others sported Cybersuits.

MEC development spanned nearly two centuries and were initially developed as force multipliers for XCOM Special Forces squads and turned missions from nearly certain suicide into merely annoyingly risky. Given the low population of Humans compared to the other species in the galaxy, MEC production and training had increased dramatically with every marine platoon supported by at least one MEC. Being a pilot for such a machine was now a far more attractive prospect given that the user no longer had to sacrifice their limbs to operate one.

One of the MEC Troopers discharged his railgun into an unseen foe before moving to shield the camera operator from the disturbingly accurate gunfire. A Marine off-screen pushed the cameraman to the ground as the MEC reengaged the assailants, covering him as a nearby explosion cooked off.

"Get down!" She yelled, the warning filtered through her helmet speakers as she let off a long burst of laser fire from her Sabre rifle. A second soldier ducked into view, his face obscured by his helmet like the rest of the Marines but his voice came through a second later as the camera microphone compensated for the noise.

"-Under attack taking heavy casualties! City and dig site defenses compromised! Requesting immediate reinforcements!" The soldier swore as dirt from a nearby explosion hit his helmet. "Unknown hostiles attempting to breach dig site! No word from-" The soldier was cut off mid sentence as a large flash of green light engulfed the screen. It dissipated a second later, revealing that his whole upper body to have been blown off and the sounds of battle replaced by the sound of a deep metallic siren.

All fire from the human defenders ceased as they looked to the sky with the camera shortly following. Descending through the clouds amidst a storm of red lightning emerged the biggest vessel Shepard had ever seen. Shaped in the form of a giant squid with a jet black frame and dark metallic tendrils. It methodically began firing a ruby red beam towards the position below it, eliminating what Shepard assumed were obstructions of some sort.

To their credit the shock that took hold of the Marines was temporary and they began firing once more, but the sounds of their rifles were drowned out as Shepard heard the most animalistic scream. The other marines shifted to the sound of the noise but were soon set upon by fast moving four legged creatures, their skin an insect purple and their claws inhumanly sharp.

They tore through the Marine hard suits. Armour, flesh and organs pulped and discarded in equal measure as the marine unit was literally ripped apart piece by bloody piece before the camera went dark.

"_Cuts out after that."_ Joker's voice reappearing, sombre and disgusted. "_No Comm traffic at all."_

"Reverse and hold at 38.9." Anderson replied.

The massive squid like ship came back into view, cloaked in lightning and the hairs on Shepard's neck rose. He heard Anderson let out a sharp exhale and saw Nihlus' mandibles twitch.

"Fast Forward to 46.8." The video fast forwarded to pause at the sight of a MEC Trooper being torn out of his armoured cockpit by one of the large four legged bug looking creatures. All of them analysed its form. The laser resistant scales on its hide, the yellow hump looking pods on its back and the extremely sharp claws that could cut man and machine to bits.

"It can't be. . ." Shepard muttered in disbelief.

But it was and now the humans in the room felt a very deep fear of an enemy that many had long thought vanquished. But it was now clear as day for all to see.

There were Chryssalids on Eden Prime.

* * *

**_Universal Codex – Earth Defence Coalition – Diplomatic relations._**

_In the years following the Second Contact War and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the EDC and the **Citadel Council, **the EDC has had a strained but cordial relationship with Citadel races, due in no small part to the inherent xenophobia of the former. The EDC maintains a substantial production base due to intense development of twelve core industrial colonies established half a galactic century before the Shanxi incident. Human weariness over alien influence and the resulting bitterness of first contact between them and the Citadel led to a tense ten year period where the EDC initially refused access to their space by other species. Restrictions were gradually eased over time and free trade and passage was finally allowed in 2167._

_Intense diplomatic talks began in 2170 as to whether the EDC would be allowed to become an associate member of the Citadel and only ended after eight long years of concessions and demands. The Treaty of Farixen was amended to allow the EDC the same number of dreadnoughts as the Asari and Salarians, as Dreadnought production had dramatically increased following the Turian invasion of Shanxi._  
_Other requirements were that Humanity hand over access to laser weaponry, Elerium power generation technology and genetic modification methods to the Citadel though this was later amended to only laser weaponry and gene mods as the EDC outright refused to supply samples of Elerium. Though the Council initially considered rejecting the EDC's eligibility for membership, it was decided that the concessions that both sides had given were equal enough to allow the EDC associate Citadel membership in 2181._

_EDC relations with the **Turian Hierarchy **are cold at best. The retribution strikes conducted by the EDC Navy (following the 76th Turian regiments expulsion and later destruction at Shanxi) against the Turian colony of Antirum have led to a large number of Hierarchy Primarchs calling for Human expulsion from the Citadel while more radical elements call for outright war. Though the two do maintain trade relations, any further co-operation has historically proven to be fruitless._

_EDC relations with the **Asari Republics** and **Salarian Union **are more cordial, however. The Asari have become the EDC's biggest trade partners though relations are still hampered by interstellar politics and the pressure put on by the Turian Hierarchy to maintain distance. Salarians are usually welcome on border colonies though are generally shunned the deeper into EDC space they travel. The stereotype of Salarian spies causes some colonies to refuse them entry or confine them to port areas, though laws are being pushed through the Coalition parliament to prevent such discrimination._

_The EDC maintain strong ties with the **Hanar Illuminated Primacy** and the **Drell protectorate. **Relations were initially strained by the non bipedal nature of the Hanar and the hard to relate nature of the sentient aquatic creatures. Relations dramatically improved in 2173 when the Hanar launched a petition throughout galactic society for a suitable home for their Drell servants, after it was predicted that **Kepral Syndrome **would eventually affect 95% of the Drell inhabitants of Kahje within the next thirty years. The EDC offered the recently acquired desert world of Arrakis that was compatible with Drell physiology after widespread sympathy for the Drell swept through EDC space._

_While the Hanar homeworld Kahje still holds a Drell population of twelve million, the world of Arrakis now boasts a population of two million which is expected to double in the next three years. The Drell are still bound by the agreement known as the compact though are allowed to serve in the EDC armed forces and are granted EDC citizenship if they desire it. Drell instructors are often highly sought for Special Forces training given the intense requirements placed upon them by the Hanar._

_The EDC is currently engaged in intense anti piracy efforts throughout the Skyllian Verge and thus relations with the **Batarian Hegemony **are icy to nonexistent. Human attempts at a diplomatic solution to the various colonial disputes have been met with failure and thus both sides are more prone to fire on the others ships should official territorial borders be violated._

_Humanity maintains a mutually beneficial relationship with the **Quarian Migrant Fleet**. Quarian engineers are highly sought after by shipyards for their unconventional thinking and the fleet is repaid with weapons, supplies and fuel while often taking refuge inside human space, offering colonies protection against pirates in return for a port of call._


	2. Mist

_**MIST.**_

Captain Jan Kracinsky's day had not gotten off to the best of starts. Despite his best efforts, the last few days of shore leave had left a bitter memory in his mind. The all night drinking contest had welcomed him into the new day with a throbbing headache and a sand paper throat and to his great annoyance the scheduled morning breakfast had been forty five minutes late, the cooks no doubt suffering from the same conditions that he was.

Thus when he stepped foot on the bridge of the Karelia class cruiser _Cherbourg_ and watched as one of the frigates assigned to the Eden Prime garrison fleet suddenly exploded in a spectacularly mute burst of green energy, it took him a half second longer than he would have liked to realise that it was not a hangover induced hallucination.

The rest of the CIC echoed his confusion before warning alarms and klaxons sounded and snapped everyone into a sudden frenzy of activity, shooting Kracinsky out of his morning haze and into a burst of instinctual response.

"Intercom!" he shouted as he took up position near the central galactic display. "All crew general quarters, repeat general quarters! This is not a drill, we are under attack!"

Kracinsky took control of the battlefield display and brought up a plot of all vessels and defense satellites orbiting Eden Prime, and saw the rest of the fleet manoeuvring to place themselves between the planet and the unknown attackers.

"Dunham! Bring us about! Jacobs! Charge the Apollo's and get me a sweep of the section of space between us and the relay!" Even with the mass effect field countering inertia he still felt the ship manoeuvring thrusters engage and shift the cruiser so that it was facing the direction from where the disturbingly accurate fire was coming from.

The thirty strong garrison fleet composed mainly of cruisers echoed Kracinsky's reasoning and were shifting to bring their main armaments to bear even as two more of the their number were slagged by plasma fire, their forms breaking apart and cooking their crews alive. The other defensive arrays in the system synced with the fleet actions, the SDS satellites and their singular Thanatos class dreadnought laser cannons charging as they too came under fire.

Said cannons could carve a hole through even dreadnought class refractive armour plating while cruiser class ships could be outright slagged if they were caught in their sights. Four such Satellites had been placed in orbit around Eden Prime where it was deemed that they and the garrison fleet would be sufficient protection for the prosperous colony.

The fact that two of them and fourteen ships had already been destroyed was now testing that logic.

Beacons of light flared across the strategic map of the CIC as ships executed evasive manoeuvres and began firing towards newly designated targets. Kracinsky keyed the console as the section sweep honed in on the assailants and promptly displayed a fleet over a hundred strong in number.

"Jacobs, are they in laser range?" He frantically asked as the garrison fleet began to return fire, whittling down the enemy by a number of eight as their sheels hit their marks.

"Negative sir," The gunnery office yelled. "Ladar indicates they're just within the extreme effective range of mass accelerator fire!" The ship shook violently, knocking several crewmen to the ground as the kinetic barriers stopped what was thankfully a conventional slug round and not more of the deadly bolts of molten plasma.

"Get us a firing solution on their outer line!" He shouted before the display was updated with the energy signature of a massive ship. Kracinsky didn't recognise it but guessed that with that much mass it had to be a dreadnought, likely the one spewing lances of plasma which had claimed a further two ships.

"Belay that, target that dreadnought and feed its co-ordinates to the rest of the fleet! Abernathy! Relay everything we're getting back to Oracle station, numbers and capabilities, everything!" His throat was on fire but the adrenaline rush coursing through him allowed him to ignore it, all that mattered was returning effective fire.

"Sir, firing solution plotted! Fleet is engaging!" Came the voice of the gunnery officer with the _thud_ of the main cannon echoing through the hull of the ship as it fired a moment later.

The surviving sixteen vessels did the same, their main armaments letting loose a volley of super dense material towards the enemy dreadnought. Kracinsky watched an exterior camera feed of the scene and got his first good look at the opposing fleet. They were of a strange make up. Most seemed to be shaped in the form of wasps but the dreadnought and the smaller contingent of surrounding ships caught his eye. They were of a blocky, rectangular construction, relatively small with uneven protrusions of what looked like armour and power lines running along their hulls. Their shapes were illuminated by yellow running lights that congregated towards the bow of the ships, giving them a menacing appearance.

But they looked nothing like the Dreadnought they were screening. Kracinsky estimated it to be at least two kilometers long and shaped in the form of a squid. Red lightning crackled around its various tendrils and menacing lines of red running lights tattooed its hull. And when he saw the volley of return fire collide with its kinetic barriers and do absolutely nothing, he suddenly felt very afraid.

"SDS defenses are locked on and engaging!" The yell of the communications officer brought Kracinsky out of his trance in time for him to refocus and watch as two immense ruby red beams travelling at the speed of light shot into view and collided with the dreadnought. Its hull turned from an oily black to a molten yellow as it took the full force of the attack. Several crewmen let out an appreciative whistle as their screens displayed the direct hit.

Suddenly Kracinsky saw the tell tale signs of an imminent FTL jump as several of the wasp like ships suddenly glowed a faint blue and then vanished. New alarms sounded as the danger close Ladar warning screamed out across the CIC. The display shifted to show more than eighty enemy signatures were now within three kilometers of the fleet, rapidly manoeuvring inside the formation.

"Broadsides engage! Apollo targeting solution on target gamma three! Execute evasion protocol Charlie four!" Kracinsky struggled to shout out the new orders fast enough as the hugely outnumbered garrison was set upon like helpless sheep in the face of angry wolves.  
The _Cherbourg_ tipped and rolled as the various GARDIAN and broadside batteries engaged the enemy ships in what was practically a knife fight for the various vessels.

"Targeting solution acquired!" The gunnery officer yelled as two frigates were destroyed by the combined firepower of ten enemy vessels.

"Fire!"

The two spinal Apollo laser cannons discharged their built up energy reserves into an enemy cruiser less than two kilometers away. The ship could not evade, not against a weapon travelling at light speed. The intense energy completely ignored the crafts kinetic barriers and hit its bow dead on. The lasers washed over the entire frontal section, melting the armour, weapons and compartments into useless heaps of molten slag. The ship was torn apart as several disruptor torpedoes launched by the _Cherbourg_ impacted along its hull and tore it apart with the warp fields they generated, violently increasing and decreasing its mass until the craft tore into half a dozen smaller pieces.

"Acquire new target, designated Alpha five and dump reserve capacitors into the cannons!" The human fleet had firepower and technology on their side but were hopelessly outnumbered, their number now down to eight.

"Sir, SBS command reports they're under close quarter assault!"

Kracinsky was about to utter a reply but it was lost in his mouth. He was too shocked by the sudden appearance of a massive black squid some fifteen hundred meters ahead of the ship, its bulk completely filling the resolution of the external cameras. It was so close that he could see the damage inflicted on it by the laser fire, or rather the damage that should have been present but wasn't. Its armour bore no signs of serious damage; only slight warping from the extreme temperatures which were still causing it to glow a faint orange and yet Kracinsky knew that it should have been destroyed and blown apart.  
The fact that it wasn't caused him to shiver as, for the briefest of moments, he swore that it was staring into his soul, sucking it out into a pit of eternal blackness.

"Divert all power to the weapons systems!," He snapped " All batteries engage that dreadnought!"

Turrets swivelled and barked at the immense vessel, shells and laser fire impacting either its barriers or hull while power flowed from the Elerium generators into the forward laser banks. They had reached seventy two percent power when several lances of super accelerated molten metal shot from the dreadnought into the _Cherbourg_. The beams sliced through the various sections of the ship, flash frying people and equipment as they traveled along the length of the cruiser with methodical precision.

One beam swept over into the engine compartment and detonated the drive core and its Elerium generators causing the central section of the ship to rip apart and explode. The last thing Captain Jan Kracinsky saw was the rear section of the CIC suddenly vanish and be replaced with a rushing wave of blue energy that incinerated his body before he even felt the heat.

The EDS _Cherbourg_ fell apart like clumps of confetti in a holiday parade, atmosphere venting and subsystems detonating as it spread across the emptiness of space. The alien war machine responsible turning towards the planet as the rest of the fleet and defenses were overwhelmed and destroyed.

* * *

**35 minutes later**

Nihlus exited the central elevator having retrieved the various weapons he had stored in his assigned quarters and was immediately greeted by the sight of two of the three assault platoons allocated to the _Normandy_. While one remained aboard, the other standard platoon of twenty six men was divided into two thirteen man sections. The calming blue light of the bay area contrasting against their green and grey Earth tone hardsuits. The Turian also took note of the integrated jump systems that looked like two compact rectangular thrusters mounted on the backs of every marine there.

The third platoon was smaller in size, resembling more a squad than anything with only eight men at full strength. They, however, were equipped with the Sentinel pattern MEC's. Huge suits of powered armour standing at just over four meters in height and armed with their massive Rhino hybrid rifles, arm mounted jellied Elerium flamethrowers and extendable shoulder mounted railguns.

For a normal mission it could be considered overkill, but Nihlus knew the EDC liked overkill. They liked it a lot.

". . . dealing with non conventional weapons and Chryssalid swarms. By the looks of things we'll be facing hostiles armed with Plasma weaponry so I want everyone grabbing cover once we're engaged, barriers are about as useful as paper against them so shooters armed with those weapons are priority targets. Take them out before they take you out."

Nihlus could see Shepard pacing up and down the line of marines formed on the edge of the hangar, the standard marines dwarfed by the MEC's standing behind them. At the end of the line stood Lieutenant Alenko kitted out in a more slender suit of power armour. It wasn't covered so thoroughly in armour plating with his arms and legs more open and protected instead by flexible weaves of durable material. Nihlus presumed the weave was connected to his S2 Psionic implant and gave him greater control over his mental telekinesis.

Nihlus had his own armour of course, equipped with a cloaking field and a jump system placed in his lower thighs and back. The efficiency of both had been proven on Shanxi when Turian units would be ambushed by foes that were literally invisible and even if their cloak was disrupted, the mobility afforded to them by their jump suits allowed them to leapfrog to another position and continue raining down effective fire, thus efforts to replicate them were quickly spreading throughout Citadel space.

Nihlus had reached the end of the line of Marines when one of the MEC pilots, a man named Stahl judging by the name just below his viewport spoke up.

"What are we looking at in terms of support?" His voice robotic and steely as it came through his suit's speakers.

"Not much," Replied Shepard. "Lieutenant Pattle and the rest of the _Normandy_'s wing of Rapiers will be flying CAS but Intel reports lots of enemy flyers so don't expect them to come save the day."

"SOP for Chryssalids?" Another Marine spoke, this time a woman with the last name of Volkova.

"Do not let them get close under any circumstances," Shepard stressed. "Prioritise them over everything else or they will kill you. If they do get close then use grenades, flamethrowers, gas or Flashbangs to disorient them and then lay it on." Shepard finished with a slight murmur in his voice. Seeing what the Chryssalids had done to the Marines during the briefing had left him shaken at their ferocity.

"Shepard." Nihlus said as the human approached him, his face obscured by his helmet.

"Nihlus," He responded. "Glad you could join us. You been briefed on what we're up against?"

"Yes I have," He said, cocking his head downwards in the alien equivalent of a nod. "Anderson filled me in on the details though I've studied your people's reports on them when they invaded your homeworld. Seeing them in action however was a lot more. . ." His mandibles twitched ". . . off putting."

The Council had initially taken the human reports of their First Contact War seriously but once it became clear that no further alien attacks had taken place until meeting the Turians at Shanxi, they had dismissed them, reasoning that any threat they posed had been destroyed along with the Temple Ship that XCOM had eliminated in 2016.

To his surprise, Shepard chuckled. "Yeah, just count yourself lucky that you weren't around for the African quarantine when they first invaded." Nihlus again nodded and took down a mental note to research what he was referring to.

"Anyway," Shepard continued. "They don't bleed the same colour but they bleed all the same. Just keep your distance and if you pump enough rounds into them they'll go down."

"Noted."

Shepard turned back towards the Marines and continued with the briefing, leaving Nihlus to make his way closer to the hangar doors. He could hear the _whoosh_ of launch tubes and the sudden roar of rapidly accelerating aircraft signalling that the onboard Rapiers had entered the field.

"Alright people, we're facing a lot of unknowns here. That dreadnought and the rest of the attacking fleet have orbital supremacy so we're waiting for the First to arrive and reclaim the planet. Until then, SOP is to kill everything that's not in EDC uniform or doesn't immediately surrender," Shepard came to a halt in the center of the line "Understood?"

"Hooah!" A solid chorus of acknowledgment erupted from the human soldiers.

Shepard smiled and looked back towards the elevator and immediately straightened. "Captain on deck."

All the Marines immediately repeated Shepard's action out of respect and reflex.

"At ease, Shepard. We're dropping you off in a clearing just south of the dig site in five, you understand your objectives?" Queried Anderson.

"Perfectly, Sir." Shepard replied as the hangar bay door hissed open.

"Good. Your team's the muscle in this operation commander," Anderson began to yell over the noise of wind entering the hangar. "Go in hard and heavy. Crush everything that looks at you strange and secure that beacon."

"_Approaching drop point one." _The intercom crackled to life as Joker signaled for Nihlus to prepare for insertion.

"What about Nihlus, sir?" Shepard asked as the Turian began heading towards the freshly opened doors and steadied himself in preparation.

"Nihlus will be scouting ahead and feeding reports back to you. Otherwise, I want radio silence." Anderson finished. The Spectre leapt off the hangar deck as the frigate slowed, gliding down to Earth under the power of his jump pack.

"Can we trust him, sir?" Shepard asked, free to speak bluntly now that the person in question was no longer aboard.

"This beacon is too big for the council to double cross us, no matter what they hope to gain it wouldn't be worth it. You can count on Nihlus." Shepard nodded and deployed his helmets protective sheath over his face in one fluid motion.

"_Approaching drop point two."_ Joker called, signalling for the Marines to begin filing towards the hangar door.

"The mission is yours now, Commander. Good luck!" Both men snapped a quick salute before Shepard began moving to join the rest of the Marines and MEC's filing towards the main bay doors.  
The fast moving blur of forests, hills and cliffs of Eden Prime rushed past them as they streaked through the world's diseased sky. Shepard spotted the patch of bare space that was their landing point just two kilometers ahead. He reached along his back and retrieved his weapon from its magnetic holster, watching as the Sabre dual purpose assault rifle unfurled into its angular, yet boxy shape.

"_Ten seconds to drop."_

He checked the power cell and ammo count for the hybrid weapon reflexively and bit back the small creeping fear that came before every mission. He liked it; it reminded him that despite all the gene mods implanted in him by the EDC, he was still human. He looked over to the rest of the marines and saw the same pre battle cycle of thought going through their minds, even with their face obscuring helmets.

"_Five seconds."_

The blur of terrain crystallized and eventually halted as the EDS _Normandy_ came to a complete stop some thirty meters above the forest clearing, out of sight of the possibly compromised dig site.

The bay light turned green and Shepard along with the rest of the human soldiers leapt out of the frigate, back mounted jump suits firing and mass effect fields compensating to increase fuel efficiency. The first Fireteam under command of lieutenant Alenko shifted mid flight, allowing them to land behind an outcropping of rocks and tall tree stumps.

The second followed Shepard and landed in the center of the clearing. The jump packs cut out a meter above the soft soil and ash covered pumice. The Marines dropping into a semi circular formation, weapons outstretched as they fell into a crouching position, scanning the local terrain for signs of life.

There was the crack of a tree branch snapping as a pair of birds flew from their nests in a nearby collection of foliage but no sign of anything else.

"Ship perimeter is secure. Stahl, you're clear to descend." Shepard keyed the comm in his helmet and designated a source of nearby cover for the platoon.

"Covering." The command from Kaidan coming in through his helmet speakers as Team Two advanced out of the shadow of the _Normandy_ towards another conglomeration of natural rock pillars as the MEC team descended. The heavy repetitive _thuds_ of eight, one and a quarter ton exoskeletons shook the ground having roughly descended via the rocket modules in their mechanical feet and legs.

"We're clear, ready to proceed." The thick Scandinavian accent of Lieutenant Kasper Stahl came through the robotic filters in his suit and gave his confirmation an almost ghostly tone.

Shepard clicked an acknowledgement through his comm and double checked his ground radar map. Satisfied that the area was indeed secure, he turned towards the other Marines.

"Ok people, the dig site is four clicks away. Check your sectors along our line of advance and call out anything suspicious you see. Let's move."

The marines rose from their crouching positions, leapt onto the soot covered grass of the forest clearing that was their landing site, and began to run. Heavy combat boots moved with efficiency, transitioning from the cold greenery of the forest and onto the hard pumice path on the outskirts of the small human settlement.

* * *

Two kilometers and eighteen thousand feet above the maelstrom of battle taking place in the streets of New Eden flew Flight Lieutenant Jean Pattle, currently engaged in a particularly gruelling set of evasive manoeuvres as the warning tone of a missile lock rang in his ear.

He cursed into his helmets rebreather and eyed the dissipating seconds that were projected onto his HUD, pulling back on the stick and pumping as much power into the engines as possible. The four engines of the Rapier fighter craft spat blue flame and launched the craft into a vertical climb high into the unstained clouds.

"Knights, we have been spotted!" He shouted as he strained against the G's. "Eight bandits on heading 1-7-5, twelve miles and closing!" He continued his roll, bringing his fighter over onto its back and deploying flares and countermeasures. The alien missile tracking him veered off and flew into the cloud of high intensity distractions, exploding harmlessly in a sphere of green light.

"Knight three this is knight one, coming up on your four o'clock." He jinked the control stick thirty degrees to his left and brought the forward swept wing aircraft within eight hundred meters of his wingman and held as both turned into the aerial challengers.

"Bravo flight has tone, engaging." The two other Rapiers were climbing into the alien intercept vector, firing off a lance of missiles upwards into the enemy formation. Pattle and his wingman did the same as their targeting computers blazed green.

The volley of guided death painted the sky with their smoke trails, covering the distance between the three formations. The alien craft attempted to evade, jinking downwards and in other directions in an attempt to outmanoeuvre the missiles. Two of them succeeded, out turning the missiles and deploying disruption devices to confuse their electronic brains and prevent them from reacquiring.

The other two dove deep towards the ground and into the firing arcs of Bravo flight. Their dual rotary lasers slicing through one of the saucer shaped craft as it passed ahead of them. The second suffered the wrath of both missiles as they locked onto the only remaining target in view.

The craft lacked kinetic barriers leaving its rear engine bays to be completely shredded by the tungsten rods each missile dispensed. The engines either broke off or exploded completely, engulfing the craft in a grandiose display of orange flame which sent it hurtling towards the urban sprawl below.

Alpha and Bravo flight both chalked up a kill as they split up to engage individual targets. Clumping together would put them in two places instead of four and allow for them to be much more easily quashed by the ten remaining hostiles which was something they definitely did not want.

Pattle opened the throttle and angled his Rapier in behind two of the alien fighters. They resembled insects with the way they were shaped. Drabbed in grey and with what looked like legs hunched in behind their main fuselage. Pattle's targeting computer automatically switched to the rotary lasers and sent a message to his HUD of the detection of mass effect signatures from both craft.

The Dutch pilot depressed the trigger on his control stick. Two streams of crimson red death spat out of the Rapier at the speed of light, raking along the sides of the closest insect fighter. He walked the lasers up the across the body of the craft, either puncturing straight through or cooking the various sections into a state of uselessness. The fighter separated into various pieces after the two second laser burst and fell out of the air, parts smoldering in the oxygen rich atmosphere.

His Rapier's wings dug into the late afternoon sky, responding to his commands and hurtling upwards to the right. The second fighter had jerked off as soon as it's brother had come under fire and now Pattle was in hot pursuit. The view of the sky ahead of was suddenly streaked with green bolts of energy, reflexively causing him to evade.

_"Lead, you have a bogey buzzing you, six o'clock high."_ His comm crackled as the warning came through and he swore at allowing such a rookie mistake as tunnel vision get the better of him.

He disengaged the G force limiter on his fighter and pulled back on the stick hard. The Rapier's nose angled at ninety degrees and the entire craft slowed dramatically. The shadow of the attacking fighter darkened his cockpit as its pilot overshot his mark and Pattle tipped the nose back down and dove after it. The various gene mods throughout his body gave him an edge when it came to flying. Enhancing his reflexes, upping the reliability of his lungs which allowed them to maintain a healthy air intake while his flight suit forced blood to his brain during the dive.

He lined up the saucer shaped alien fighter as it began to bank into a turn and depressed the trigger. The familiar whine of the rotary lasers vibrated through the craft as they shot hot death at the bogey, streaks of red impacting along its hull. But it kept on flying as if the lasers were no more dangerous than rain drops. Pattle immediately recognised why.

"All Knights be advised, some of the bandits have refractive plating." He keyed a command and the lasers disengaged while the dual mass accelerators mounted in the lower section of the nose took over. The system cycled through the change for an agonising two seconds before their status changed from red to green. He gunned his Rapiers engines and pulled hard into a lag roll, bringing him in behind the enemy as it exited its turn.

Twenty millimetre rounds shot forth as the saucer entered his targeting reticule, impacting along its kinetic barriers. Pattle swore at the level of countermeasures his opponent possessed and continued firing. The protective bubble around the alien fighter withered and died under the barrage allowing the heavy slugs to tear into the crafts center mass. Control and propulsion systems were pulped as the Rapier's rounds smashed into the saucer and utterly shredded its rear half. It split in two as its structural integrity failed and unceremoniously crashed into the rolling fields of wheat covering the land near New Eden.

_Scratch another._

No rest for the wicked. Pattle checked the sensor readout on his HUD for more targets. The enemy force was down to six, the opening attack and subsequent kills by the human defenders having whittled down their numerical superiority. Pattle grinned as he singled out two bandits on an intercept course for Knight two and flicked on the missile targeting. The two enemy signatures blazed orange on his HUD display and the tone of a good lock rang in his air. The Flight lieutenant ripple fired four fire and forget missiles, two for each target, and watched as they streaked through the sky like javelins.

"Two, you're being pinged. Break off and evade!" Pattle shouted through his mouthpiece as he realised the missiles wouldn't hit his teammate's pursuers in time.

* * *

Knight Two, Flying Officer Jennifer Eldring, let out a curse as she reluctantly broke off her pursuit of one of the insect fighters and banked hard to avoid the spray of fire the other two contacts were hammering into her kinetic barriers. Her Rapier reverberated in protest at the violent demands placed upon it by its pilot and cut through the nearby cloud layer like a knife. Eldring knew that her Flight Lead had deployed missiles to assist as evidenced by the four fast closing blips on her radar and yet the rational part of her brain told her that the odds of lasting until they got to her position were rapidly dwindling.

She deployed flares and noise makers in hopes of throwing off their aim. The cloud layer was illuminated by the white hot distractions and blue pulses of light that scraped her barriers in a bevy of impacts, knocking them down to just eight percent charge. She killed all power to her weapons and rerouted to her engines as she engaged her afterburners and continued to jink erratically.

The timer on her helmet's HUD indicated the salvo of missiles sent to aid her would arrive in little over five seconds and she let out a short exhale in response. The incoming weapons fire had teetered off and the distance between her and her pursuers increased to little over a kilometer in length.

_Four seconds._

The whine of a hostile missile lock blared in her ear as she realised the reason for the slackening fire and dumped her remaining flairs into the Rapier's slipstream and dove.

_Three seconds._

Atmosphere became white hot flame as the four engines of the human fighter craft reached full military power and shot it into low yo-yo turn, sacrificing altitude for a dramatic increase in speed in the hopes of breaking the painfully stubborn missile lock.

_Two seconds._

The warning tone of a lock switched to that of an enemy launch. Eldring saw two orange blips shoot forth from the two larger enemy contacts, straight towards her turning fighter. She keyed the flares button in desperation. No response. The onboard stores of countermeasures had been nearly exhausted in her previous pursuit and the last stores had been depleted completely just a few seconds earlier. She grabbed the stick and levelled out the turn then reached for the eject lever.

The bolts securing her armoured glass canopy shot off out of their moorings as fast as it took to blink, the rocket motors mounted underneath her seat firing shortly afterwards.

_One second._

The pursuing missiles closed the final few meters between them and the Rapier and tore into its fuselage. The overwhelmed kinetic barriers swatted aside as the two delivered their payloads and detonated in the human fighter's midsection, cooking off the Eezo core and detonating the entire craft in a massive blue fireball. Flying Officer Jennifer Eldring watched in horror as the detonation reached her faster than her ejector seat could propel her away, cooking her body as the flames engulfed her.

The two fighters responsible were savaged as the quartet of missiles caught up with them and exacted vengeance, ripping apart engine pods and bludgeoning straight into their bellies. Their rapidly disintegrating forms fell molten and broken down to Earth as a small consolation for the slain human pilot.

* * *

"_Two is down! I don't see a chute, repeat, no chute!" _Pattle saw the scene below, mouth agape inside his mask as the Rapier burned with no sign of its pilot. The Knights were close like any small unit that operated for long periods of time together, their kinship having allowed them to pass the tests required to operate as the _Normandy_'_s_ assigned fighter compliment. Now, as their friend plummeted downwards, a very vengeful rage overtook the Rapier pilots.

Pattle reengaged his rotary lasers and ploughed through the air between him and the closest contact, obliterating the atmosphere separating him and what he identified to be one of the insect fighters. The enemy opponent turned into his attack and opened up at maximum effective range with its mass accelerators. Shots pinged off his barriers and Pattle hissed at his opponent, trigger finger commanding his main armament to let loose.

The insect fighter was ill equipped for the game of chicken. Its shots pinged off his barriers while scalding rapid fire death burned into the enemy cockpit. Sensors, hull plating, cooling vents and maneuver thrusters boiled away as the lasers cut deep into the fighter.

The main cannons ceased firing as whatever was controlling them was, like the whole forward section of the craft, eaten away by the ruby red beams of death. The fighter skewed drunkenly to the left as a lance of flame shot out from its central mass and shook the remaining body of the craft loose and into large chunks of molten debris.

The lasers ceased spewing their deadly ordinance as the overheat safeties and cooling systems kicked in and overrode the trigger commands of the angry human pilot. Pattle swerved back towards the location of his wingmen as the small sense of satisfaction washed over him.

His HUD indicated that only one bogey remained, the remaining Knights, equally as vengeful having each claimed a kill, now also moved to trap the fleeing hostile. The Knights set upon the remaining craft like a pack of hungry lions, tearing it to shreds as the battle below them raged.

* * *

Nihlus jogged through the rough terrain with the reassurance that his cloak masked his sound and movements to any potential onlookers, affording him a rare instance of unimpeded mobility.

And yet though no one could see him, he could see everything perfectly. The battle taking place in the streets of New Eden lit up the city in the far distance, causing him to stop and peer closer through his rifles scope. The central business district was awash with flame. Marines and armoured vehicles tried desperately to shield and evacuate civilians from the waves of Chryssalids converting swaths of humans into more and more of their kind, pumping large amounts of ordinance into the boulevards and back alleys around the central business district.

Nihlus could see they were fighting a losing battle; they simply didn't have the numbers or firepower to contain a population of Chryssalids that were rapidly converting the city's large human population.  
And when they were overwhelmed, the Turian knew they would overrun the entire area and branch out to attack more human settlements.

Yet why wasn't there more forces here, around the dig site? That had to be the reason for the attack, nothing else made sense. Eden Prime was symbolic and to some extent strategically valuable but nowhere near enough to warrant such an invasion. It had to be a smokescreen, tying down the majority of the garrison and preventing the humans from protecting the dig site.

Said dig site was unnervingly devoid of activity. There were no bodies, no burning equipment or other signs of battle. The only things that moved were the fifteen or so synthetic humanoids and their attachment of hovering combat drones. The Spectre refocused his scope towards the group and drank in the details of their forms.

They were painted bone white and covered in protruding pipes that jutted out of their various limbs. Armour plating covered their central sections and morphed into a protective carapace that covered the top half of their elongated heads. Heads that looked oddly familiar. They almost looked. . .

Quarian.

Robots resembling Quarian environment suits.

Geth.

The isolationist synthetics that rebelled centuries earlier against their creators were now here on Eden Prime and beyond the Perseus Veil. Was the device they all seemed to be racing to acquire really that valuable?

The Geth were moving away from the dig site, past what Nihlus' maps confirmed to be a small human settlement established for the scientists analysing the Prothean ruins. Adjoining that via a freshly cleared path ran the rail line that connected the whole area to the small auxiliary space port on the outskirts of New Eden. He checked the power supply on his cloak. The meter read eighty two percent, more than enough for the remaining distance towards the rail station.

"Shepard, this is Nihlus. Come in." His radio was awash with static and his onboard software suite struggled to cut through the local jamming that was hampering everyone's point to point communications.

"_We read you, over." _The soft pants of labored breathing that indicated they were hastily moving through terrain transmitted in over the crackle of radio jamming.

"Be advised, we have hostile synthetics in the area. Geth by the looks of things. Watch out for ambushes and heavy weapons," Nihlus turned his head a fraction to make sure that nothing had heard him through his helmet and continued after having satisfied his senses. "I'm moving on towards the rail station. Meet you there."

"_Copy, stay sharp out there."_

"Always." He killed the comm link and rose from his crouched position and continued on through the ruins in his search for answers.

* * *

Forests offered some of the best opportunities for an ambush out of any natural terrain and the one they were cautiously moving through was no different. The area had been untouched by enemy air bombardment making it seem to have been artificially placed there given the ruined landscape of the surrounding area. The thick jungle canopy allowed little light through in normal circumstances, but the fading sunlight and thick smoke obscuring the systems star dropped visibility down to just over twenty meters.

This would be a problem if optical genetic enhancements were not standard military issue and if you were wandering through without spectrum amplification software built into an armoured helmet and hardsuit. Fortunately, all of the humans currently leapfrogging from cover to cover _had_ said implants and armour and were alert to the potential ambushes that could be sprung at any moment.

Thus, with the assistance of Jump packs that had allowed them to cross the open terrain quickly and efficiently, the humans had made good time towards their target. The four kilometer distance had been cut in half in little over five minutes with only the thick forest impeding further jump operations.

They would have continued at that pace as well, if Corporal Thomas Sligo hadn't stepped out into the open and suddenly had his whole left side pulped by a sudden burst of green light. The suddenly deceased human hung in the air briefly before crumpling to the ground, caking the soil with flash fried organs and crimson fluid.

To their credit, the Marines had their assault rifles unfolding and in their hands by the time the half a man corpse hit the floor. The humans dove for nearby cover as Shepard triggered his adrenaline module and took a mental snapshot of the ambushers, huddling behind a thick stone pillar in the process. The assailants had fired from cover and arranged themselves into what he surmised was a hastily prepared frontal linear ambush. There must have been at least a platoon's worth of hostile synthetics and at least one heavy plasma weapon platform judging by the amount of fire now raining down around their position.

Shepard chanced another look in the five second old ambush and identified the heavy hitter. It was a large bulbous synthetic walker held aloft by two elongated mechanical limbs supporting a central head. Said head was spewing plasma and by the looks of the scales of armour plating around it, heavily armoured.

Shepard checked his sensors and knew he had to get them out of the kill zone else their cover would be gone before even a minute had passed. The solution, like most of the EDC's doctrine was simple.

Attack.

"Team Three, railguns on that walker! Team two, suppressing fire on their right flank! Team One with me! Heavy assault pattern!" The air filled with the smell of ozone as the marines began pouring laser fire into the flanks of the enemy platoon. Cracks of railgun fire threw off the plasma walker's aim as hypersonic shells half the size of fists smashed into its kinetic barriers and armour plating as Shepard's team advanced, bounding through the undergrowth and firing flash fabricated omni grenades into the synthetics right flank.

The rearward MEC's ceased firing as their railguns reloaded and switched to their heavy Rhino rotary lasers, raking the line of what was now assumed to be Geth supported by a Sectopod walker.  
Shepard felt a tinge of relief at the fact that the incoming fire was draining his shields and not puncturing directly through his power armour.

Fire poured out of the human line. Grenades, Railgun, lasers, mass accelerators and EW devices crashed amidst the enemy as the Second and Third Fireteam covered the bounding advance of the First. Flora cooked and ignited under the heat, tree trunks were blown apart and rock that had stood for centuries before sapient life had ever come to Eden Prime blazed molten orange.

Shepard triggered his jump pack and fired off a grenade into the enemy line as he landed in the shadow of a chest high tree stump. He pivoted ever so slightly out of cover and sighted one of the murderous synthetic constructs. Anger riled inside his gut as he depressed the trigger and watched as a two second burst cut a diagonal line of boiled rents into the upper torso of the machine. It fell apart a half second later, the cut in its armour spewing white fluid and Shepard pressed on, laser spitting beams of scalding death into the enemy.

One of the assault team waded into fire a half second longer than he should have and was peppered with a lance of blue white bolts as his shields overloaded. The top half of his head disappeared and he dropped to the ground with little fanfare as his armour was stained crimson. More fire claimed another Marine as plasma exploded around the assault team, signalling that the Sectopod had begun to recover and re-enter the fray.

A sudden_ thud_ reverberated through the ground and Shepard felt it even over the cacophony of noise and explosive detonations. He glanced a look in the direction of the source and saw the Sectopod advance to a nearby patch of elevated rock that could potentially allow it to fire over the cover of Team Two. He ducked back into cover as he steadily closed the fifty meter gap between the enemy and his assault team, marking the machine with a high priority kill order before his head slipped behind a pile of blown apart debris that served to protect him.

"Team one, disruptor grenades on that walker!" He highlighted the MEC platoon that was seeding death and destruction in the enemy lines and designated the walker through his HUD with a railgun request.

"I wanted that thing dead yesterday, Team Three!" He hissed as the importance of haste and accuracy became painfully obvious. Stahl's men bulldozed their way through the now shredded forest in response and into a better firing position and braced. Stability clamps deployed out of their mechanical feet and anchored them to the ground as the autoloader system for their back mounted railguns finished cycling.

Long tubes similar in shape to missile launchers unfolded back into position atop the shoulders of the huge power armour suits and synced to the onboard targeting computers. A heartbeat later power surged along the conductive coils and launched eight projectiles meant to ruin main battle tanks at a velocity seven times the speed of sound. The already compromised barriers and armour of the alien behemoth cracked, faltered and completely failed as it was assaulted by the barrage. The rounds cleaved straight through the leg joints and central pod, pulverising the onboard power core and targeting electronics like wet paper.

It stumbled, groaned and finally exploded as the onboard systems completely failed, unable to cope with such vicious battlefield trauma.

Shepard smiled in satisfaction at the display. With the main enemy power house now eliminated, the Marines turned their attention towards the remaining synthetics.  
Shepard had guessed that they sported stronger than usual kinetic barriers since their armour was piss poor by comparison to standard organic hardsuits. A valuable advantage against the other council races but against an angry human military whose laser weaponry development spanned nearly two centuries and whose world they had just attacked unprovoked? Shepard almost felt sorry for the dumb bastards.

"All Fireteams, advance!" He'd had enough. With the vast majority of their firepower gone, the humans now healthily outnumbered and outgunned the remaining synthetics. The MEC's, now unclamped from their positions and with freshly cooled Rhino rifles methodically advanced up the incline. A river of laser fire flooded the now breaking Geth line as they were joined by Team Two who used the lumbering giants as cover as they too drenched the hostile position with red hate.

Shepard sighted one of the Geth as they tried to relocate to more cover, cutting it down with two bursts from his Sabre. He sighted another as its cover fire cut into the right arm of one of the advancing Marines, severing it as he lingered out of cover for a second longer than his barriers could last. A two second burst cooked its flashlight head and it dropped to the ground.

The MEC's practically ignored the return fire. Barriers equivalent to that of a light tank stopped the small arms fire with laughable ease. The massive element zero cores on the suits made them terrible for stealth missions, but against entrenched positions, even one was a deal breaker. Shepard had eight supporting him.

Then they began to run.

The remaining Geth, all nine in number failed to evade as the mechanical titans descended upon them. Their pulse rifles having no hope of stopping even one of the human war machines as they barrelled into the group of robots. Armoured fists crushed, swatted aside and punched the ambushers as if they were made of tinfoil. Their bodies torn apart in a cathartic display of mechanical gore, the remaining Geth went quiet as their systems failed and their core processes self destructed.

* * *

They spent the next few minutes recovering. Two of the marines were sweeping the Sectopod for anything of value while the rest patched the wounded and saw to the dead. Private Spalding and Lance Corporal Webb had been cut down by fire from the Sectopod and Geth while Private Iwasaki had had his arm completely severed by rifle fire. He was stable but nowhere near combat capable and Shepard had assigned another Marine to escort him back to the LZ.

He was now technically down six men in total. They had completely wiped out the enemy to the last and those losses were technically acceptable, but not to Shepard. Each was a kick to the chest and he berated himself for not immediately eliminating the enemy's heavy weapon.

"Sir," Lieutenant Alenko patted him on the shoulder "All dead accounted for. We're ready to move out."

"Good," Shepard replied. "Mark their positions on your HUD and then take point, loose spacing." They were moving again in less than twenty seconds and Shepard whispered a cold promise of vengeance for the fallen.

* * *

_**Universal Codex - Synthetic Elerium - Classified entry.**_

_During the First Contact War, **XCOM** Special forces squads were able to retrieve and identify several samples of what was later designated E 115.  
__E 115, colloquially referred to as Elerium was identified as the main power source for alien weapons and atmospheric craft, generating an enormous power to input ratio when subjected to proton bombardment. In the following months, XCOM squads were able to obtain (at great cost) large quantities of the alien material, using it to fuel revolutionary new aircraft, weapons and power armour. This stockpile was strictly monitored and its contents intensely studied as the retrieval of Elerium from downed alien ships was the only way to increase it.  
__Following the destruction of the UFO labelled as the Temple Ship, humanity was cut off from further deposits of the material after the fifteen ton power core of the Temple Ship was recovered off the coast of Brazil. The element was immediately rationed and allocated towards exploratory space efforts, allowing the scouting and terraforming process of Mars to get underway in the early 2020's._

_With spaceflight development increasing and demands for Elerium rapidly outstripping supply, intense efforts were made to replicate the element. Efforts were spearheaded by DR. Katherine Vahlen as twelve years and billions of dollars was poured into the project until finally in the summer of 2028, a synthetic compound alternative was tested. Power generation capabilities, pound for pound, were only 65% of that of regular Elerium, but it was more than enough for space flight requirements._

_The limiting power factor of Synthetic Elerium has caused many weapons previously deployed by the XCOM squads to become unfeasible, most notably **Plasma weaponry** and **Particle Cannons**. However further refinement over the last hundred and forty years has bumped up the power generation capabilities of Synthetic Elerium to 85% of the original, reducing the size of weapons and ship based reactors._

_This refinement has not, however, allowed for Plasma weaponry to make a return as a power generation threshold of 90% would be required to make Particle and Plasma weaponry combat effective. Synthetic Elerium comes in two forms. Civilian issue blocks whose power generation is artificially capped during its creation process to 50% that of the original. These are used in every day life for electronics such as omnitools, vehicles such as the GAT 65 aircar and in civilian spacecraft such as the Seattle class super freighter and is next to impossible to alter or weaponise._

_The Second variant is Military grade Elerium. Manufactured to full power specification and whose use is extremely tightly controlled by the Earth Defense Coalition. Weapons, vehicles and spacecraft powered by this variant have automated self destruct routines for their generators to prevent capture by hostile forces. Recently, the EDC exploited a treaty loophole when they were forced to hand over laser weaponry specifications to the Citadel but not their Elerium fabrication methods, leaving the Council with weapons that were cutting edge but completely useless without an alternative power supply. This development renders the EDC as the only galactic military able to equip their forces with Directed Energy Weapons that other races are now struggling to counter._

* * *

_Authors notes: Well I was wondering the other day as I read through this X-over section why everyone seemed to focus on the First Contact War and how the world was suddenly represented by XCOM, a clandestine black ops section with no political apparatus at all. So, I decided to write my own since everyone seemed to ignore the ME races and just have humanity as a badass loner. Well, why not have humanity as a badass with equally badass friends? AKA the whole reason why the ME universe is awesome._

_Just a thought :)_


	3. A Rude Awakening

_One day._

Its head erupted into a glittering spray of pulped veins, scales and brain matter. It's four legs went limp and the spew of chartreuse coloured blood erupted from its now severed neck, staining his face and armour. The all too familiar _ka-chink_ of a shotgun cycling through to its next round warmed his ears and he sighted his next target.

_Not even one goddamn day._

A humanoid shape wandered into his sights. Two hours ago, another like it had been human. An hour ago it had started developing a cough which then proceeded to morph into an intestinal ache until finally, thirty minutes prior, a large insectoid head had burst from the mans stomach and bitten the arm off of one of the researchers attempting to comfort him. Zaeed Massani had seen the development, promptly unfolded his Desecrator shotgun and then proceeded to explode the beasts head with rounds meant to put down Krogan.

People called him many things. A mercenary, scum of the Earth but most knew him by the moniker that the Batarian Hegemony had so enthusiastically ramrodded down everyone's throats. The Butcher of Torfan. He'd laughed at that, mostly because it had actually _increased_ the demand for his services and was the primary reason why he was here. The EDC rarely contracted out security jobs to mercenary outfits but since his expertise had been quote "invaluable to the safeguarding of valuable resources", he'd been given the offer of a nice cushy job with good pay and a quiet rest before continuing with the scheduled murdering occupying the next three months of his calendar. That had been before aliens and robots from God knows where had shown up and taken issue with the continued existence of every living thing on Eden Prime.

_Can't even go one goddamn day without something trying to turn you into a freaky friday special, can you?_

The freshly spotted zombie's chest disappeared as Zaeed blasted a nice circular hole the size of a watermelon through it. Fleshy strips of the embryo rapidly growing inside decorated the nearby door of an overturned research trailer and the force of the heavy rounds caused it to stagger and trip over its own broken angle. The human mercenary leapt over the pile of hastily stacked corpses that he'd been using to shield himself and into the freshly wet hole now in place of the zombie's chest.

"Oh you fucking bastard," He placed his Desecrator to the zombie's temple as it began to reach for shins. "Do you have any idea of how long it takes to get dried human blood off of combat boots?"

The shotgun barked twice and brain matter mixed with intestines and amniotic fluid, fertilising the soil of Eden Prime. His shields pinged as through the swarm of zombies and occasional Chryssalid, several desk lamp looking synthetics marked his position and began firing.

_The signing bonus was so not worth this shit._

He darted behind the rest of the overturned trailers where the two surviving members of the guard detachment assigned to the dig site had elected to make their stand, dozens of the slow moving zombies having been incinerated by their rifles, leaving a pungent smell of cooked organs to waft through their suit filters. Their armour was surprisingly clean, the Drell Sergeant and uptight Gunnery Chief had been able to survive their initial ambush by the bugs and later robots that had suddenly taken such an interest in this farming backwater.

Of course, they had only survived after Zaeed had broken into the onsite armoury, commandeered a man portable jellied elerium flamethrower and barbequed a swath through the swarm of Chryssalids that had begun to overrun the position. Thus they were now under siege by the rest of the synthetic contingent that they had initially defeated, the Drell having named them as Geth. Zaeed sought to remember his name, Kiosk or something.

Special Operations Sergeant Thane Krios was methodically alternating between his Sabre rifle and his natural biotic abilities, flash frying zombie and Geth alike as well as introducing them to mass effect bubbles that altered their personal gravity fields so that they were only slightly less intense as those on say, Jupiter.

Natural Eezo nodes lined all over his reptilian skin interfaced with the adapted human armour and built up a purple electric hue that split the air around him, arcing out violently as he holstered his Sabre for its cool down period and charged towards a nearby Chryssalid climbing over several hastily prepared obstacles meant to slow down the horde. It hissed and spat as it saw the eighty five kilogram organic projectile shoot towards it, futilely attempting to block the charge with one of its limbs. Thane hit it dead center in its upper neck, knocking the wind out of it and pressing the attack with a rapid set of biotic fists. Dodging the lightning counter attacks, he withdrew his knife from the holster on his slender armour's carapace and began to engage the bug in close quarters.

Its inhumanely sharp claws swiped and arced all around his body as he lowered his mass to better allow his muscles to counter the lightning fast assault, bending and twisting around them like water and slicing tendons and unarmoured patches of skin as he weaved.  
It howled and brought its head down, intending to sever the head of the sergeant before he could react. He anticipated this, shifting to the left and bringing his knife hand up into the bite. The monomolecular blade cut deep in between the plates of natural armour lining its neck, slicing thoroughly into its airways and vital arteries.

He continued the attack, increasing his mass so that his natural weight more than tripled and grabbed a hold of one of the scaly limbs. Calories burned as he brute forced his fist through the leg, eviscerating it and disconnecting it from its body. A quick backwards haymaker smashed into the Chryssalids temple, cracking it and driving broken skull fragments deep into its over sized brain before it could even recover.  
Thane's barriers sparked as the Geth shifted to focus on the implausibly skilled biotic and began draining them with pulses of blue light. Seeing an opportunity, he returned to his normal weight as he enveloped the now swaying brain dead creature in a mass effect field and began to spin.

The now weightless Chryssalid spun like a discus as it was suddenly hauled up through the air and into a group of four hapless Geth who hadn't had the tactical foresight to duck.

Zaeed fired a grenade into the group for good measure, cathartic explosion of blood, fire and flash fried optical solid state storage following shortly after. Quiet respect for the the biotic filtered through him and he made a mental note to stay out of a biotic's close quarter range in future. Further along by one of the overturned trailers, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams was dealing with the assault in a less flamboyant but no less personal manner. Ruby red beams scythed through the multitude of rotting corpses now getting disturbingly close to their position as her Sabre switched to its laser firing module.

"We have hostile Geth slipping around the barriers at our ten o'clock and I could really use some help with our undead friends over here!" Her tone was anxious, raspy and yet more than anything, pissed.

Nearly her whole unit had been killed in the first few minutes of the assault and these bastards had dared to, god she couldn't even begin to accept the idea, reanimate their corpses as incubators for those bugs. Of course she was angry, she was goddamn mad.

Or at least Zaeed thought so, given how she had taken to the job of defending the makeshift defensive position without so much as a complaint.

His shotgun barked twice in anger at the flanking Geth troopers, cutting through their beefed up shields and shredding their torsos with little difficulty. He grunted in satisfaction at dropping over twenty thousand credits on the weapon as shots pinged all over the surrounding cover. Thane quickly reappeared behind the barrier in a benign burst of element zero and the trio took to returning fire as their cover was chopped down by suppressing fire.

"Those Geth mean to pin us down and let the undead overrun our position," The panting but focused two tone voice of the Drell carried over the chatter of rifles and sickening moans as he ducked behind a slab of concrete. "If we don't eliminate that support fire then we shall have to abandon this position."

Thane, despite being the lower ranked of the two EDC Marines and with Zaeed being an independent contractor, had unofficially become the group's leader and led them towards the trailer camp, his experience as a covert operative having translated somewhat effectively into a leadership role.

"The flamer's tanked, not a damn drop left," Zaeed responded "Williams, how many of those grenades do you have left?" He blind fired a burst over the trailer and heard it hit something fleshy.

"I don't," She replied frantically. "I used them all up getting rid of that cluster near the trail."

"There is a rock outcropping some thirty meters to our rear," Thanes head swiveled back towards the well worn path that lead to a nearby clearing. " I can lay down a shock wave while the two of you. . ." He paused as his radar suddenly brightened with a platoon's worth of friendly contacts just a few dozen meters south of their position.

"This is callsign Delta Seven-Niner," Thane addressed his radio in surprise. "Requesting urgent assistance at our location."

"_Seven-Niner, this is Normandy Marine Team Actual." _A male voice replied. _"Be advised, we're new to the field and inbound on your position."_

Seconds passed before the ground began to shake beneath their feet. Another passed and the Geth suppressing them disappeared in a storm of red as grey and green Marines supported by towering MEC's cut their way through the synthetic rear and tore into the fifty or so zombies clambering about in sudden confusion.

The embryo's implanted in them mentally screamed in frustration as they tried to redirect their assault towards the newcomers that were currently scything their way into their ranks and rapidly diminishing their life expectancy. Heads, organs, clothes, and boiled blood splattered and sprayed everywhere as the zombies were systematically exterminated by firepower they could neither counter nor hope to survive.

Ten seconds had changed the hilltop location from a deathtrap into a peaceful, although corpse filled, position teeming with heavily armed humans.

The defenders emerged from cover, hopping over the various piles of debris and came face to face with their backup.

They were clad in the universal power armour synonymous with the EDC and the MEC's looked like the standard Sentinel pattern from what Zaeed could make out. Thane and Ashley stepped forward towards a man that the old mercenary guessed was their leader, given the way the two of them stiffened and the how each of the Marines seemed to hang on the words he said.

"Commander," The drell said. "Thank you for the timely intervention, I fear we would not have made it without you. I am Sergeant Thane Krios, Special Operations attachment to the 212th Marines."

"Lieutenant Commander Shepard, EDS _Normandy." _The tall, slender human replied. Zaeed noted the Psionic Lieutenant next to him as his optical implants detected the faint Psychokinetic resonance from his suit. "We were nearby and heard your distress call," He spun to observe the carnage. "What the hell happened here?"

"Sabotage and the Geth." Thane brought up his omnitool. "At least I'm fairly certain they're Geth, Hanar history classes spare little time for non organic lifeforms." The haptic interface on his omnitool brought up images of the synthetics for all to see, then flickered to a security camera recording. "The sabotage is less clear cut. Chryssalids started emerging and attacking just before the Geth showed up and started bombing."

"You're saying they were planted here?" Shepard replied.

"It's hard to say," Thane played the footage of Zaeed blowing apart the first chestburster even as more and more of the scientists abdomens had started exploding and their newborn began emerging teeth first. "But I know the flu like symptoms many of the scientists were experiencing began before the garrison fleet was engaged."

"Why didn't you radio Autumn base and inform them of the chest bursters?" Another Marine marked on Zaeed's HUD as Lt Alenko asked, the distress call having come from the dig site itself and not the local base.

"Most of the 212 was patrolling the surrounding area," Ashley answered. "We weren't expecting an attack from within. We were too busy trying not to be food for the bugs. By the time we were able to radio back, debris from the fleet was already burning in atmo and Autumn was being blown to bits."

"How long did it take to contain the Chrysalids?" Shepard asked as he delegated some of the Marines to search through the campsite.

"About fifteen minutes," Zaeed cut in, hulking shotgun still in hand. "Then that bloody dreadnought showed up accompanied by dropships that practically crapped Geth all over our position. Cut through most of the patrols and forced us back here."

"What about the Beacon?" The all important question rolled off Shepard's tongue.

"The Scientists brought it back here for study while we were off by the second camp just further uphill," Thane replied, regaining control over the constant interrupts. "However I suspect that they were converted to Chrysalids and sent against one of the Marine patrols."

Shepard mulled over the information for a few seconds and then tapped his helmet. Zaeed's HUD and comms, piggybacking off of the local network, lit up as they were synced with the new arrivals net and designated all of the new arrivals with marker tags.

"You're unit's been pretty much destroyed," Shepard stated. "So I'm designating you as a part of ours. Recovering that beacon is our top and only priority. The First Fleet will be here within the hour but that won't be fast enough to stop whoever's behind this from taking the beacon, so that's our job."

"Just to the west of here, about a kilometer and a half away, is the local monorail station," Thane pointed. "That's the surest destination for someone looking to remove the beacon quickly from the area."

"Understood," Sheppard nodded. "The Geth have control of the whole area at the moment so assume it's already in their hands." He cocked his head at Zaeed. "Can you keep up with that gear?"

"I ain't no goddamn cripple, I've got all the fancy jump jet toys the EDC has a hard on for." Zaeed replied, pointing a thumb at the two square pods on his back.

Shepard replied with a simple nod and marked the monorail on the Team map. The ground thundered as the MEC's entered a sprint towards the complex and the rest of the makeshift platoon engaged their integrated thrusters and ascended on a trail of fire.

* * *

No trains or signs of movement disturbed the unsettling silence surrounding the monorail station. Hardly anything moved, except for the shimmer of light shaped like a Turian Spectre. Crystals that Nihlus had neither the time nor the expertise to analyse were dotted around the station, humming an eerie tune of muted static.

What he had seen and studied in abundance, however, was the vast amount of entrails and bodies whose chests had practically exploded from within. Corpses numbering in the dozens littered the path and frustrated his movements as he sought to avoid the still moist blood trails possibly infected with whatever alien pathogen had created the Chrysalid embryo's in the first place.

As a Spectre, he'd seen a lot of depraved and sickening things throughout every corner of the galaxy, but this gained a sense of disgusted admiration from Nihlus. They were converting population centers into disposable shock troops. Shock troops that were even now massacring countless humans in the city just a few dozen kilometers away.

He slinked past the river of bodies towards the main rail platform, eyes set for signs of movement while his brain internalised the repercussions of the attack. The Council had specifically promised the EDC that a thing like this would be treated as an act of war on every Citadel species, but Nihlus knew that they would find some hidden clause in the Terminus Colonial Ruling that absolved them from promising aid. Humanity was a beast on a leash and to do anything major without Council approval would result in them being booted from the Citadel, an act with far reaching implications. The Turian wasn't sure if the Council realised that, following this attack, the humans wouldn't really give a damn what they did, as long as they didn't stand in their way.

A slight ping of movement brought him back to reality and he slowed, shotgun in hand and aimed at a collection of small quickly fabricated storage containers as he advanced up the stairs. The Crates were a red herring, but the sight that greeted him as he reached the final step caused his mandibles to spread in the Turian equivalent of sudden disbelief.

Saren?" he asked in surprise.

The main platform was littered with the various crystals that covered the ground all over the area, humming their unsettling tune as the bodies of several Geth lay prone and unmoving near the other Turian. He was clad in a suit of asymmetric armour with one side looking unnatural and cobbled on compared to the rest of his grey hardsuit. His face was the that of a Turian Taboo, devoid of markings and with avian head spikes that were longer than those of regular Turians. Shimmering blue eyes turned to face the shocked Spectre.

"Nihlus." Turian voices had a "flanging effect", making them seem cold and metallic. Saren's voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

"What are you doing here?" Nihlus said, relaxing at the sight of his old friend. The Council had a habit of forgetting to inform Spectres if they were to expect assistance but to do so now, with the EDC and with a discovery of this much importance?

The other Spectre had been preoccupied with a nearby console and the contents of its data storage but he stopped as the question exited Nihlus' mouth. The haptic interface glowed a mute blue as the Turian strolled over towards Nihlus, stepping over the numerous Geth bodies as he did so.

"The Council thought you could use some help on this one." Saren said, putting a hand on Nihlus' shoulder.

Nihlus' world suddenly zoomed out, all perception of detail suddenly clouded and alien. He tried to shout out and move his limbs but they refused to obey following the sudden loss of control. Sound became high pitched, smell became dead and unknown while touch was lost altogether. He was suddenly imprisoned within his own body, with a glowing eyed Spectre looking right at him.

"I imagine that you're probably trying to resist the control at this point," Saren said, fingers trailing around Nihlus' shoulders. "Don't. There isn't anything you can do old friend, no one and nothing can help you break free."

"By now you've no doubt realised that this lovely little thing here," he tapped the side of his head, a metallic _tink_ resonating instead of hardened bone. "Has relieved you of all bodily functions. The simple fact is that I control you for the time being and the foremost question on your mind must be _why_ followed by _how_."

The barefaced Turian walked over towards the console he'd been fiddling with, downloading the rest of its contents in the space of a few seconds. He returned immediately after, the Geth bodies behind him reactivating and moving to establish a perimeter around the station.

"It's courtesy of our fiends and for a reason, Nihlus, a reason whose implications encompass and affect every living thing in this galaxy." he stretched out his arms as if holding a globe. "But I know you, old friend, your tired platitudes and concepts of morality that guide and define you." He stepped back, his voice sounding almost tired and sad.

"You'd say that there had to be alternatives to what I'm doing and believe me, I've tried to find one. But there isn't, there isn't anything or anyone can do to stop what's coming," He stepped forward towards Nihlus, eyes just a few centimetres from the paralysed Spectre. "No one but me, Nihlus," Saren's eyes glowed purple, alien and unknown to the friend he'd known for so long.

"I wanted for us to be partners in this, to save the galaxy from what's coming, but the moment I tapped your mind and took control I knew, I knew that you would would never allow yourself to betray the Council to do what is necessary, so for what I am about to do, I ask for your forgiveness, old friend."

Nihlus struggled against the control but it was like pushing against a wall of nails, the harder he tried, the more it hurt. A singular wave of anger swept over Nihlus as his friend retrieved his side arm from his hip holster, unfolding it into its full form and came to Nihlus' side. He raised the sidearm, opposite arm glowing with purple energy as it served as a conduit for his mental power.

"You mean a lot to me, my faithful Hastatus, so I promise you, this will be painless." Saren's steely voice carried a tinge of regret as he leveled the pistol. Nihlus braced for the end, anger and sudden hatred never subsiding.

There was an intense flash of light, a deafening sound and a wave of heat that suddenly split the air, sending waves of pain through the left side of Nihlus' face.

Control returned to him in a quick, groggy sensation, dropping him to his feet as he used his shotgun as a a crutch. He gasped for air and looked towards Saren. The Turian was clutching his arm, the limb suddenly a few inches shorter as Nihlus realised that his hand was missing and in place was a smoking cauterised stump.

Beyond the station Nihlus could see the shapes of two dozen EDC Marines and MEC's bounding down the hill, rifles chattering as they cut up the station surroundings with laser fire.

The smell of burnt flesh filtered through his helmet as he regained his senses and dived for cover behind several of the nearby shipping containers, still processing the sudden development into anger and realisation.

Saren was working with the Geth and the other aliens, which meant that he was here for the beacon just like everyone else. But if he didn't already have the beacon then that must mean. . .

He keyed his Comm in the hope that no one had had the sense to set up a jammer. "Shepard! Do you copy?" He yelled into his radio.

"_We're reading you, what's your status?_" Shepard replied as the hum of nearby Crystals suddenly became louder and louder.

"I'm fine!" He replied. "Target that grey Turian on the platform, he's heading for the beacon!"

And then suddenly, the whole station was bathed in light.

* * *

The helmets of the Marine's automatically polarised to compensate as the crystals littered all around the monorail station morphed into humanoid shapes of golden light. An instant later they changed into figures covered in streamlined form hugging skeletal armour, lacking eyes of any kind and with an upper body suspended around the now glowing activated crystals.

What must have been thirty aliens suddenly materialised, plasma rifles in hand, and began firing on the charging Marines. Their advance suddenly split and faltered as they scrambled for any available cover. Incandescent plasma washed over one of the MEC's who attempted to prime his railgun, burning away the duranium alloy cocoon that was his pilots cabin and flowed inside, burning the man without giving him so much as a chance to scream.

"All squads," Shepard yelled, sighting down one of the crystal aliens and letting loose two bursts from his Sabre, cutting it down. "The grey Turian is our primary target!"

He turned towards the platform and sprinted to a nearby safety barrier, ducking behind it as the green and red crossfire lit up the area in a dazzling display of deadly energy. "Alenko and Williams, assault the platform," He switched to his own squad and the MEC's now hastily maneuvering in response to the lack of adequate cover.

"Team one and Three, covering fire!" The Marines under Kaidan's command leapt out of cover under cover of railguns, lasers and flash fabricated grenades, firing into the ranks of crystal aliens and Geth now attempting to cut them down. Pulses of blue and green intermixed with red as the hostiles cut down two of the advancing Marines, losing six of their own as the MEC's levelled their Rhino's and cut loose.

Several of the crystal aliens, which Shepard had deduced were Outsiders given the countless intelligence reports regarding the First Contact War that was drilled into every EDC Marine, took up elevated firing positions on the monorail platform, laying into Team Two with their plasma rifles. He readied his omnitool, fabricating a shredder grenade to take them out when suddenly, one the Outsiders entire upper body exploded in a splash of crystalline gore.

The sound of rocket boots and a Rhino gatling laser cut through the whine of energy weapons as Lieutenant Kasper Stahl landed directly behind the cover bound aliens, his knee coming down hard as his hulking mass crushed several geth platforms beneath him and sent six of them recoiling, his tech armour detonating in a wave energy. Shepard wasn't sure but he almost seemed to be happy as he rose and began methodically slaughtering both crystal and synthetic lifeforms with every pull of the trigger. The Outsiders were set off balance by the sudden assault, unable to prioritise targets as Shepard keyed his HUD and ordered every Marine to charge.

The combined firepower of the assault rapidly cut down the confused opposition, the Marines advancing up the platform and catching sight of Saren as he waited anxiously for one of the docked trains to reach the platform.

Shepard reached Nihlus first, but before he could administer medigel for any of his wounds, the Turian took off running towards the platform.

"It's Saren, we can't let him reach the beacon!" Nihlus yelled as Shepard sprinted after him.

"He's on the Train, Team Two, with me! One and Three, secure this position!" Team Two along with Ashley engaged their jump jets and scrambled to match velocities with the moving cars while the MEC's and remaining Marines formed a wall of covering fire for their sprinting comrades, suppressing the outsiders with beams of ruby death. Shepard joined the airborne Marines along with Thane and Zaeed while Nihlus leapt onto the fourth car. Flight computers struggled to avoid the more than dozen airborne soldiers rapidly descending towards the the roof of the train cars as incoming streams of fire suddenly cut the air.

* * *

Gunnery Chief Williams was set to land ahead of the others, square on the bed of the first car, luck allowing her to be the closest and quickest to deploy her jump jets when the Train had started moving. Said luck had also placed her squarely in the midst of the rogue Turian and the half dozen geth serving as his personal escort. She fired her Sabre at the cadre of synthetics, lasers scorching the car with inaccurate fire as the geth shot back, bright blue bolts hammering her shields.

Her HUD flashed a warning and she switched tactics, firing a primed EW grenade into their ranks. It detonated, affecting both her and the Geth at the same time, shorting her guidance systems and bringing her down _hard. _Her knees burned at the sudden descent and she found herself winded from the impact.

She sucked in a lungful of air and rose, weapon raised and firing. Her finger was wrapped around the trigger when suddenly her Sabre was knocked out of her hands, falling off the tram and down towards the hastily retreating grass below. A hand like a vice wrapped around her neck and lifted her into the air. It was the Turian, Saren, eyes glowing with his opposite hand smoking from where Thane had shot it off. She choked under the grip, legs bucking and hips swaying, as she tried to free herself. Over the sound of wind that seemed to drown out everything she heard the sounds of gunfire as the geth and outsiders on the train moved past Saren and reinforced the others engaging Team Two on the rear cars, letting loose in the cover sparse environment.

"You humans will never learn your place in this galaxy." Saren stated in annoyance. "You rush in and believe that your technology makes you strong and important when you fail to realise that you are little more than the apes from which you are descended."

"F. .uck. . you. . ." Ashley spat out with effort as his inhumanely strong grip choked the air out of her.

Saren chuckled. "Stubborn to the end, just like your grandfather on Shanxi."

Ashley's eyes widened in shock at the statement. "Surprised? I scanned your mind the moment you boarded this platform. I never face an enemy I haven't studied." He tapped his head. "These new upgrades just allow me to do that somewhat _instantaneously_." He chuckled again and moved towards the side of the rapidly accelerating train car.

"Your grandfather killed my brother, human, and despite all my many upgrades," His mandibles broke out into a turian smile and he held the Gunnery Chief over the edge. "I'm still just turian enough to enjoy taking my revenge."

Her systems shorted out as Saren let out out a surge of energy from his omnitool into her suit and then let go. Time slowed down for Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, the part of her brain desperately searching for a solution to being dropped off the extremely fast moving monorail cried out as her jump jets failed to initialise, and she hit the ground as all went black.

Saren looked down in satisfaction before his omnitool hacked the trains control systems and disconnected the other cars from the lead, allowing him to pull away towards where the waiting beacon resided.

* * *

Shepard cursed as his Sabre cut down one of the outsiders, watching as the display on his HUD marking Ashley's lifesigns cut out and stopped. The Geth and Outsiders with their mix of mass effect and plasma weaponry had the humans pinned down, the MEC's and Team One no longer present to bulldoze the opposition with their vastly superior firepower. Still, what they lacked in numbers they made up for with pure unconventional dominance.

"Sir," Kaidan's voice chimed in over the sound of plasma and laser fire. "I can hit them with one of my fields if Thane can put up a singularity, it should allow us to cut them down." The power of psionics was well known to mankind, especially to those that survived Akuze, like Shepard. It had caused him to be hesitant around Psy's like Alenko, even though they were either kept in check by the EDC or stripped of their power altogether if they did not enlist.

"Do it. Team Two, covering fire!"

Purple energy crackled over the biotic and psionic as their respective control over gravity washed over the hostile warriors, immobilising them with powerful mental shackles and mass effect fields. The EDC troops rose as one, laser fire pouring out into the now exposed and helpless geth and outsiders. Armour cooked, weapons melted and crystal power sources exploded with blue energy as the now emboldened humans cut down the remaining aliens and machines with cold calculated efficiency.

All was quiet aboard the train as the last of the geth fell to the ground, smoldering white hydraulic fluid seeping out over the train platform.

"Damn it, he's cut the car cables," Shepard stated as he noticed the slowing momentum of the platforms. "Nihlus, how dangerous is this guy?"

"_He's one of the best Spectres the Council has, and as you've seen, he's utterly ruthless."_ Nihlus replied over the radio.

"Which means that at this rate, he's going to get to that beacon before us." Shepard replied coldly. He closed his comm link and scanned the satellite map. The space port was some five kilometers away where the geth had no doubt taken the beacon for Saren to flee with, and judging by the operational range of their jump packs, they wouldn't reach it in time. Not without help, at least.

"Lieutenant Pattle, do you read?" He called as Team Two moved to secure the whole train.

"knight One_ here, Commander." _The radio betrayed the sound of laboured breathing as Pattle no doubt engaged in a high G turn.

"_Knight One_ we have a train car that needs to be stopped before it reaches these coordinates, are you available for an airstrike?" Asked Shepard as his suit uploaded the relevant data.

"_That's a negative, Commander, enemy fliers are trying to reach that location themselves and we've got our hands full containing them."_ Pattle replied.

"Roger that _Knight One, _keep them off us for as long as you can. We'll find an alternate solution. Shepard Out." Said solution was to simply proceed on foot but that would take at least half an hour if hostiles were present and he knew that they didn't have that kind of time.

"Commander." Shepard turned towards the kneeling Lt Alenko. "These train cars each have individual motors to maintain an even power to weight ratio. One of our E packs could keep this thing going long enough to reach the space port if we all got on board the front car."

"Good thinking Lt. Alright everyone, bring whatever can be used as cover and place it on the furthest car. No way this Turian's escaping us."

The Marines moved to place several of the thick chest high cargo containers at the forward section of the train as kaidan disconnected the furthest car from the others before hooking up a portable Elerium power pack to the individual train motor. The car lurched forward slowly under the strain before picking up speed and leading the Marine assault team towards the space port.

* * *

The monorail station connecting the rail line to the spaceport was vast and open aired, meant to handle large amounts of people and to be built with the most minimal of construction materials available. Large concave arresting walls and pillars had been added on to its design since it was first created and gave the whole place a mass produced atmosphere.

The sight was absolutely dwarfed, however, by the huge towering black specter that was the alien dreadnought. Huge and towering with red crackles of lighting glowing against its two kilometer tall form, it dominated the skyline like a still fresh wound on otherwise unmarked skin. The Marines paused as the train car came to a halt at the station, drinking in the sight as each of them felt a small scratch at the back of their minds.

Military discipline snapped them out of their fearful gaze and they fanned out, securing the immediate area around their arrival point. It was strange, everything was quiet, no gunfire or explosions could be heard except those in the distance. Shepard didn't like it, his gut told him to be alert.

"Not a thing on sensors, Shepard, not a damn thing." Zaeed's voice carried over the comms as he led three of the Marines towards a pile of crates in a cautious approach, rifles up and scanning.

"Copy that. Everyone keep your eyes open, we aren't alone here." Shepard replied.

The team had split into four groups, led by Zaeed, Thane, Shepard and Kaidan respectively while Nihlus jetted up towards one of the nearby walls to provide overwatch. They covered the various railings as their onboard sensor suites pulsed and searched for any mass effect energy signatures, half of them advancing up the right hand side of the station while the other half took the left.

The seventeen strong EDC team swept the area before coming to the conclusion that no one was waiting for them. Bodies still tense, they continued moving forward towards the central section of the spaceport with it's large docks and smaller landing pads for freighters and delivery drones neatly arrayed in straight lines.

"Shepard, my sensors are picking up something but it's faint and not. . ." Nihlus cut out before he could finish his sentence. He'd disappeared as he'd discreetly jetted towards another elevated section overlooking the port.

"Nihlus, what was that? Nihlus come in!" Shepard replied.

"Commander I'm picking something up on long range scanners, it's big and headed right for us!" Kaidan mouthed loudly over the squad comm.

The sky suddenly darkened as a large wasp like looking craft, about the size of a drop ship suddenly shot into view, forward cannons firing on the humans below. Two Marines evaporated in a bloody mist of red and pink body parts while the rest dived for cover. Blue bolts the size of soda cans scythed through the civilian grade materials as the craft cut away at their cover with its deadly armament. The ground below it suddenly became free of gravity's grip as several mass effect corridors materialised, dropping a large geth platform and dozens of standard soldier synthetics just ahead of Shepard's position. The air screamed with the sound of gunfire as the Marines returned fire whenever possible, laser beams glossing over the drop ships hull in a vain attempt to disrupt the devastating suppressing fire.

"Private, Longbow on that dropship!" Shepard called out over the deafening wail to PFC Banner, the anti tank specialist of Team Two.

"Aye, sir!" The ground shook as drop ship refocused on the Marines on the leftward side of the station, allowing a few precious seconds to take aim before the troops it had deployed joined the fray. PFC Banner dropped to one knee as he unfurled the folded missile launcher, it's systems syncing to his targeting computers as it came online. The missile launcher's display blazed orange as the weapon acquired a lock on the drop ship. A heartbeat later the onboard missile shot forth with a plume of smoke following as it sped towards its target. Onboard tungsten rods shot out almost immediately, weakening its shield and allowing the deadly projectile to streak directly into its hull. Fire billowed out of its side as the shot rang true and overwhelmed the crafts armour plating.

The drop ship swayed drunkenly and its suppressing fire slackened, only to be replaced by the fire of its deployed ground troops. Dozens of synthetic platforms fired blue bolts sheathed in a phasic envelope that cut through shields and cover while the drop ship retreated out of sigh, wounded but not destroyed.

"Thane, I need a singularity on that platform, bottleneck the geth advance!" Shepard yelled as he fired a burst from his Sabre.

"Alenko, advance up to that position and flank them," He marked three heavy duty forklifts opposite the geth advance on the squad map. "Zaeed, cover them!"

"Mark!" The crack of flash fabricated grenades and the whine of laser fire cracked the air as the EDC Marines fired into the column of geth now spreading over the platform like weeds growing unchecked. The sudden assault caught the geth by surprise, but only for a moment. They shifted to establish a firing arc along Alenko's squad's line of advance, even as laser fire cut into their weakly armoured forms.

"_Commander this is Knight One, enemy fliers are retreating and we are inbound on your position, ETA one minute."_

Shepard didn't have time to reply, he was too busy attempting to cut down the geth attempting to flank his own flanking force. The task was made harder by the fact that the geth were employing a heavy weapons variant of their standard platforms. It was at least three and a half meters high and carried a portable heavy mass accelerator that never seemed to need to cool down. It had already cut down one of Alenko's squad as they bounded towards the forklifts and PFC Banner had been killed attempting to move to another patch of cover a few meters away, leaving his Longbow missile launcher distressingly out of reach.

"_Shepard, this is Nihlus. Just had an encounter with some kind of robotic squid which slowed me down, moving to support you now."  
_

* * *

Nihlus subtly appeared out of sight atop the wall directly behind the geth, sniper rifle in hand. He went prone and sighted the huge weapon, letting a breath of air escape him before firing at a platform wielding a grenade launcher. The phasic round tore through the synthetics head, blowing it apart in a burst of circuitry. He sighted another platform, the larger geth heavy weapons unit and fired. The round failed to penetrate, the frustratingly strong barriers slapping it aside as if it were nothing.

The geth immediately reoriented on Nihlus, the failed shot having given away his position. Rounds tore through the wall supporting him as if it wasn't even there. The Turian reflexively triggered his jump pack as he reached for a cluster grenade. Wings of fire shot out of his limbs as he rose and swung the canister towards the synthetics, separating into to half a dozen discs that shot out in a ninety degree arc. Four of the geth were immediately pulped as the discs detonated a few feet from them, spreading shrapnel and explosive heat that overwhelmed barriers and cooked internal systems while the large geth unit soaked up the remaining two.

Nihlus descended during the reprieve on a protected platform just next to the wall he had been on a moment earlier, rifle in hand and firing.

* * *

"_Twenty seconds, requesting target mark."_ Shepard finished cutting down another of the geth before switching on the laser designator on his Sabre.

He marked the large geth synthetic with it as he relayed the pilots request through the squad comm and was rewarded with an increase of laser fire and numerous beams of light invisible to the naked eye suddenly appearing.

The geth saw it, however, their all spectrum optics detected the designation beams and they reacted accordingly. Chaff and disruption pods shot out of the massive geth platform and coated the area surrounding it with digital white noise and smoke. The Marines counter the counter, deploying EW grenades and focusing all their designators on the main enemy threat, burning through the disruption and halting the use of countermeasures as the geth's software recalibrated.

"_Target locked, rifle one." _The confirmation was deadpan as numerous anti personnel and anti armour rockets were ripple fired towards the geth positions from little over two kilometers away.

They streaked through the air like spears and closed with their targets in seconds. The Marines ducked, their designators no longer needed as the missiles ignored all jamming efforts and cut into the geth. Heat and pressure from high explosive ordinance and armour piercing flechettes sliced through the geth some forty meters away. The Marines hunkered down as robotic limbs, processor cores and molten body parts rained down all around them, consuming the platform in a huge fireball. The screaming engines of the Rapiers passed overhead, their sights now locked on the fleeing geth dropship as it materialised on their radar.

Shepard was the first to rise as the auditory assault dissipated, giving the order via HUD markers to charge into the now subsiding inferno and pursue the rogue spectre that lay ahead. The taskforce bounded over cover and leapt forward in an energised fashion, morale high as the scale of destruction visited upon their enemy became clear.

Ahead of them, the massive black squid shaped dreadnought began to ascend, an incomprehensible horn of digital noise signalling its departure as it climbed higher and higher into the air. The Marines continued regardless, weapons up and scanning as they jogged towards the center of the space port. Several triggered jump packs and accompanied Thane as they moved to elevated platforms, establishing covering positions for the ten still moving on the ground.

Nihlus also triggered his Jump Pack, rapidly accelerating up into the air and covering thirty meters before descending once again. Shepard followed suit, the entirety of Team Two leapfrogging past dead bodies, twisted wreckage and smeared blood until they stopped just short of what had to be the beacon. It was tall and monolithic with the distinctive rounded design so prevalent throughout all Prothean architecture. It crackled with green energy and interfered with their suit functions, limiting their ground radar to just a few meters as they got closer and closer.

Saren was nowhere to be found, the dreadnought responsible for the bulk of the orbital destruction having carried him out into space.

"Team, spread out and secure the area. Nihlus, with me." Confirmations came from the Marines and they moved to establish choke points along areas most likely to be used in a counter attack. Shepard and Nihlus moved instead towards the beacon, its energy causing their heads to throb.

"It feels. . . wrong somehow." Shepard said.

"Agreed," The Turian holstered his rifle and moved closer to the prothean artifact. "Though the question remains, why is it still here?"

"Maybe Saren didn't have enough time to load it onto that dread? We did catch up to him pretty fast." Shepard responded, holstering his Sabre as well.

Nihlus didn't reply, moving to touch the beacon, as if intoxicated by the very sight of it. Suddenly, tendrils of green energy wrapped around him, lifting him up into the air against his will. Shepard responded reflexively, triggering his jump pack and knocking Nihlus out of the way with enough force to break bone. The tendrils flailed as they lost their host and wrapped around Shepard instead, paralysing him as _something_ made its way into his brain, shutting out all other sensory input.

**_Human._**_  
_  
_Streams of data and images flooded his mind, showing signs of indescribable atrocities._

**Your kind has proven worthy of the trials still to ****come.**

_Ships as dark as night crashed upon worlds of green and blue, dispensing thousands of mutated cybernetic creatures who devoured the native populace._

**_Prepare for the coming night, for it envelops all._**

_He saw himself, bloody and broken atop a mountain of ash, slowly sinking deeper and deeper into its suffocating depths._

**Do not fail ****us.**

The tendrils gently lowered him down towards the ground as massive spikes of pain shot through him from his feet up to his head. He cried out in agony, his heart beating as if it was about to burst before time slowed down, and the world around him lost all its brilliant light.

* * *

**_Universal Codex - Earth Defence Coalition - Military Doctrine_**

_Military analysts in Council Space regard the EDC as an awakening giant following the conflict known as the Relay 314 incident. The use of Mass Effect technology coupled with prolific deployment of Directed Energy Weapons, Genetic Modification and the large build up of industrial infrastructure on worlds such as the colony of Benning allow the Coalition to deploy and maintain a disproportionately large military force despite its small population size (when compared to other species) and limited time on the galactic stage. The conflict dubbed the First Contact War or "E War" saw the loss of almost a third of Earth's human population and trillions of dollars worth of damages to planet wide economic zones. Thus, the Coalitions population is heavily militarised and jaded with all humans turning eighteen required to undergo one year of military service with the option to continue serving once their term is up. These factors allow the Coalition to pose a serious threat to military juggernauts such as the Turian __Hierarchy and their addition to Council peacekeeping efforts has dramatically reduced the threat of war with the Terminus Systems due in no small part to their technological superiority._

_The EDC's Military doctrine emphasises rapid strikes on enemy logistical, communication and leadership centers followed by a rolling campaign of overwhelming force and firepower. The EDC lacks the specialised Biotic abilities of the Asari Republics, the extremely high discipline of the Turian Hierarchy or the intelligence capabilities of the Salarian Union, but instead focuses on the use of superior technology and Special Forces operations coupled with specialised units that can field large amounts of firepower to overcome enemy forces._

_In terms of manpower, the EDC Navy is the smaller of the two main branches of the military, following the Marine Corps. EDC fleets are large juggernauts composed of Heavy Cruisers and Battleships supported by artillery Dreadnoughts, Carrier craft and screening Frigates. Due to the the Treaty of Farixen, The EDC has been limited to the use of twenty one Dreadnought class capital ships, after significant negotiations amended the treaty due to the rampant production of such ships in the two month long Relay 314 incident and human unwillingness to decommission them._

_To counter this limitation, the Coalition employs the use of Battleships and Carriers to support fleet operations. Battleships are nine hundred meters long and sport oversized Dreadnought drive cores and Elerium power generators. This is due to their main armament being comprised of eight swivel mounted Cruiser grade Apollo lasers and two spinal mounted mass accelerators, accompanied by hundreds of broadside turrets, dozens of anti ship missile launchers and extremely powerful shields. The primary role of Battleships are to serve as a fleets moving bunker, soaking up enemy fire while dealing massive amounts of damage in return, allowing EDC Naval forces to bulldoze their way through enemy defensive lines and blockades._

_Carriers are one and a half kilometer long Dreadnought sized ships that sport no main heavy armament, instead they forgo any offensive weaponry in favour of large bays for fighter craft and vehicles used to provide support for fleets against enemy interceptors, bombers and to provide air cover for planetside offensive operations. An average Carrier can deploy up to three hundred fighters at a time though this number is usually lessened as Carriers are multipurpose vessels that are often used to transport Marine divisions to the frontlines._

_On the Ground, EDC Marine operations are characterised with fast moving blitzkrieg assaults and elastic defensive lines. Landing zones are often cleared by orbital bombardment followed by deployment of troops en masse upon the flanks of suspected enemy positions. Attacks are characterised by fast moving combined arms assaults supported by orbital artillery and heavy armour. Tanks such as the heavy _Sentinel_ and _Avalanche_ pattern fit within the category of super heavy and heavy tanks respectively and are the some of the signature warmachines in use by EDC. Infantry assaults are often supported by orbital artillery, MEC's and air cover and are usually used to pinpoint weaknesses in enemy lines which are then assaulted by a direct localised offensive, as well as securing urban population centers._

_Defensively, the EDC relies upon the policy of collective colonial security as a member of the Citadel and Détente when faced with hostile neighbours. However if diplomacy fails, the coalition relies on large strategically located rapid reaction task forces within system clusters to protect human worlds. If a colony comes under attack, relief forces are never more than an hour away. Colonies are heavily fortified with garrison fleets and space based defensive satellites augmented by anti orbital groundside weaponry. Defenses are designed so that invading or raiding forces are constantly met with layer upon layer of resistance all the way to Marine and Militia garrisons on the ground in what is informally known as the "Onion Policy"._

_EDC forces are not without fault, however. Rapid Reaction task forces are spread out along colonial borders where they are most needed which leaves the middle tier colonies vulnerable to carefully prepared attacks. Only the Core systems such as Sol are assigned their own dedicated fleets to protect them and they can take up to three hours to reach mid tier colonies such as Elysium. Only fifty percent of the EDC's total military strength is active at any one time with reserves taking up to a month to be made completely combat ready. Such a mobilisation places a large strain on the human economy and cannot be sustained for more than eighteen months without commercial goods rationing and other restrictive measures being implemented. EDC leadership has taken steps to extend this operational window to at least twenty four months, but such a capacity for war is not expected to be reached until 2185._

* * *

_Authors notes: Well that was fun to write. If you're shocked by the sudden death of Ashley, just remember that this is an XCOM story as much as a Mass Effect one. People can die without warning and with far less fanfare than the late member of the Williams family. Next chapter sees our budding heroes reach the Citadel with some interesting political repercussions for all of council space. Tell me what you think in the review section :)_

_P.S: I need a beta reader who has a good knowledge of both the XCOM and Mass Effect universes, does well with proofreading and who I can generally bounce ideas off of._


	4. Tidal Forces

_The world was an oily black. So**und was muted and ali**en. Touch was slimy and grotesque._

_Darkness gave way to light, endless m_**ute**_d streams of light._

_A s**cratching**, no, clawing, in his mind caused his head to throb._

_Evil hands reached inside, images of happier times, of space's innate horror and beauty flashing forward._

_A laugh, **hollow** and uncaring echoed from the man before him._

_Yellow eyes of fierce intensity looked de**ep into** him, like scalpels cutting through soft flesh._

_"I,I forgot something," He murmured as the man continued watching with sickening stillness. "What did I. . . my name. . . I forgot."_

_Images of grey and green armour, men and women spewing red flame, fla**res o**f blue an**d pu**rple._

_The man trailed around him, sucking out his memories, his sense of self._

_"Command**er Shep**ard, Service_ n**umb**e_r 5923-ED**C**-2826." The man smiled a toothy grin._

_T**he room became** awash with static, cutting through his mind and causing him to cry out in pain._

_Akuze. Secret Facility.** Rogue Psi**onic. Response Squad._

_**Ambu**sh._

_**"No More. Wh**at you were. Forget an**d**_ surr**ender it** _all to me_"_ The man stroked his head, squeezing his skull. Voice off balance and jarring, eyes still inhumanely yellow._

_Heat and pres**sure, noise a**nd pain. Doors exploding a cam**pfire yellow.**_

_The man shrieked in anger, purple waves emanating from his feet._

_Hovering machines. Ripples of la**se**rs. Splatters of blood and brain._

_Colour **and vibrancy retur**ning to the world._

**_Rescue._**

* * *

"-I think he's waking up!" Pain lanced through his head. A voice that sounded alien called out in the still mute air next to him, his eyes steadily opening after reliving the nightmare.

Cain, the monster responsible for stripping Shepard of his happiest memories. So long ago and still he couldn't even remember anything about his early childhood. Every memory before he had turned nine had been wiped, instinctual memory like reading and writing and a decent educations worth of content remained in his brain after the incident. Thankfully, anything after he had turned nine had been left alone, and he'd been allowed to stay in the Marines, though not without some heavy psychological testing and retraining.

The blue-white light of the medbay caused him to strain his eyes as he started to rise from the bed. His legs flopped over the side of the table and he clutched his head, symbols of something alien darting to the corners of his vision.

"Take it easy, Shepard, you've been asleep for nearly a full day." The calming and rich english accent of a woman somewhere in her mid fifties filled the medbay as her hand came to rest on his shoulder.

Her face came into view as she gently brought his head back, checking both of his eyes for a response from his pupils, letting go once she was satisfied no lasting damage was present. Doctors were meticulous and methodical individuals, Shepard had learned as much during the extensive rehabilitation period he'd gone through and again after Elysium. That was a time he'd much rather forget.

Shepard recognised the doctor in question, Dr Karin Chakwas, the head of _Normandy'_s medical branch and one of the best doctors in the Navy. The whole crew had been handpicked for this mission, after all. He'd met her during their stop over on one of the thousands of orbital stations surrounding Mars, her dossier having mentioned that she had a fondness for scalpels.

"No sign of any abnormalities with your optical implants though I must ask, how do you feel?" She quizzed, setting the examination tool back on the nearby bench.

"Like someone sliced my head open with a service knife." He murmured. The light strain of the overhead illumination began to lessen and he lifted his eyes from his boots, moving to face the refocusing image of Doctor Chakwas. Her first sentence came to his mind and the world became clearer thanks to the small tinge of a minor adrenaline rush.

"Wait, you said I'd been out for almost a day, what happened?" He asked slightly less coherently than he would have liked. HE looked about the room, noticing the meditative form of Thane Krios sitting somewhat precariously on a nearby medical bed.

"The Beacon interacted with you and Nihlus somehow, rendering you both unconscious before you were brought aboard for medical observation." Anderson said, entering the room proper. Shepard hadn't noticed him leaning in the doorway. He looked a lot more hagged than the last time he'd seen him.

"The _Normandy_ came down for an emergency extraction once we realised that all of the Chryssalids in New Eden were making a bee line for your position." Anderson stated.

"What about the rest of Eden Prime?" Shepard asked groggily.

"The First Fleet got there too late to stop Saren and his forces from making their exit," Thane said, standing up and moving towards Shepard. "By the time they arrived New Eden was a total loss. The Marines they had with them established a quarantine zone before the First glassed the city."

Glassing was a containment procedure that went back to First Contact, just as the Aliens launched their first major offensive against military targets and population centers. Though it had evolved to utilise orbital bombardement instead, the procedure was first used with chemical weapons after the ethereals dropped chryssalid spores all over southern africa. The vastly underequipped countries smattered across the continent had failed to stem the tide as city after city fell to the replicating bio weapons.

They were only stopped after NATO, China and Russia used their navies to quarantine the continent while thousands of troops were deployed at the Suez Canal and Gibraltar, the blockade only ending after the last Chryssalid had died of starvation. Thankfully, XCOM had stopped the alien threat before they could repeat the process in an area not so easily contained.

"God. How many died?" Shepard asked.

"Too many, Shepard. Though you can thank Sergeant Krios and Lieutenant Alenko for making sure you and Nihlus got out." Anderson said, gesturing towards the Drell.

"Thankfully Chryssalids don't have inbuilt Jump Packs, our extraction to the _Normandy_ might have been slightly more complicated if they did." Thane replied, though Shepard couldn't tell if he was being serious or sarcastic.

"Thanks, really." He said with a smile, receiving a nod from Thane.

"There is still the matter of your abnormal brain activity," Chakwas said. "While you were comatose, you displayed signs of unusually high beta waves, as well as a large increase in your rapid eye movement, all things typically associated with intense dreaming."

"It wasn't dreaming, not exactly." Shepard grabbed his head again. "It was like an archive or something, like a vid or vision of things, horrible things. Nothing's really clear."

"Interesting , I better add this to my report." She brought up her omnitool and the interface glowed orange.

"What about the Beacon? Is it onboard?" Shepard turned back to Anderson.

"That's a matter I'd like to discuss with you in private, Commander." He stated.

Chakwas and Thane took the hint, saluting as they walked out into the Mess where Kaidan was watching, a plate of MRE's and what looked like a glass of milk placed where he was sitting. The door chimed shut a moment later and the windows polarised to prevent anyone from looking in.

"You were saying, Captain?" Shepard said.

"I'll put this bluntly, Shepard. Things have gone to shit in the past twenty four hours. The Beacon was destroyed after it did whatever it did to you and Nihlus and we have no idea why. Right now that's the least of our concerns, however." He sighed.

"What do you mean?"

"The Executive Council has pretty much started mobilising for war. They began calling up reserves the moment it was confirmed that we had geth and ethereal forces on Eden Prime." Anderson stated, the implications of such a move not lost on him.

Such an act over just one colony, no matter how important, would be seen as an aggressive move by the rest of the galaxy. The EDC already had a large military but now it was about to double in size and commit to the first fully fledged galactic war in human history.

"Already? I thought they would at least wait until we actually know what we're up against." Shepard said, hopping off the side of the bed and to his feet.

"Never underestimate the power of fear, Shepard. We've been waiting a hundred and seventy years for them to return, and now political factions like Terra Firma are pushing hard for retaliation." Anderson admitted.

"What about that Spectre, Saren?" Shepard asked. The memory of watching Ashley drop to the ground caused a small tide of anger to wash over him.

"We consulted with Nihlus when he came to, he confirmed it was Saren and we've got plenty of evidence thanks to your helmet cam." The Captain brought up his omnitool, the dossier of the barefaced Turian sprawling across its holographic screen.

"He's a traitor to the Council then, we've got to show them this." Shepard said with venom in his voice.

"We're already on that. Joker is taking us to the Citadel where our ambassador and Nihlus will make sure Saren is stripped of his Spectre status." Anderson replied.

"What about Sergeant Krios? Isn't he supposed to return to Arcturus for reassignment?" Shepard asked, rubbing his jaw at a sudden spike in pain.

"I pulled some strings with the brass, he's been assigned to the _Normandy _as an attaché, figured we could use someone like him." Anderson said, pacing the length of the medbay.

Shepard paused, hesitating as he opened his mouth to say something. Anderson caught it almost immediately.

"What is it, Shepard?" He asked, stopping in place.

"Permission to speak freely, Sir?" Shepard asked.

"Granted. You know you can always speak your mind with me." Anderson replied honestly.

"Sir, is it wise to have aliens on board? This is the EDC's most advanced ship, should we be letting non humans just walk around freely?"

To his surprise, Anderson didn't reply, at least not immediately. A frown creased his features and he looked somewhat irritated.

"Shepard, I know you're still recovering from whatever the Beacon did to you, but frankly, that kind of question is something I'd expect from a grunt fresh out of boot camp," He walked up to Shepard, slowly and deliberately, a disappointed look on his face. "Sergeant Krios is one of the most highly trained operatives the hanar have ever had and the fact that they were generous enough to allow him to join the Marines is nothing short of a win for us. The Shepard I trained would recognise him as a valuable asset for the _Normandy's_ ground team, and not something as base as what race he is." Anderson stopped just in front of Shepard, eyes hard and withering.

"Or was I mistaken?"

"Sir," Shepard snapped to attention, saluting the Captain in a singular, fluid motion. "No Sir!"

"I thought not." Anderson's eyes lost their coldness and he relaxed. "Get yourself ready, we'll be arriving at the Citadel in a little over three hours."

* * *

After allowing the anesthetic and whatever sedatives still in his system to wear off, Shepard had made his way into the mess. There were only a handful of personnel present, mainly due to the fact that the time was just shy of four in the morning. Still Shepard could see the faces of some of Adam's engineers and one of the crewmen from the CIC. The one who caught his attention, however, was the green and scaly form of Thane Krios. His plate was devoid of any edible material and his large bulbous eyes seemed to be out of focus, staring off into nothingness.

The _Normandy_, being a frigate, didn't have the luxury of space that a cruiser or a dreadnought enjoyed, ensuring that the drell occupied the central seat at the main eating table, meaning that the two would inevitably come into contact with one another. Shepard helped himself to the overcooked rations served just a few hours earlier and took a seat on the outer edge of the table , chowing down after having his hunger return with force.

He needed time to clear his head and he briefly wondered if he shouldn't have taken his breakfast in his quarters. He dismissed the idea as the tasteless meal entered his mouth.

"Good morning, Commander." Thane said as he came out of whatever trance had occupied his thoughts. "Feeling better?"

"A little. Still a bit groggy after having the Doc's drugs go through my system." Well, that and having his brain scrambled like an egg.

"Interesting." The drell replied cryptically.

"What is?" Shepard replied in between bites.

"I would have thought that interfacing with the most advanced relic of prothean technology ever discovered would have left you slightly less," He searched his brain for the proper word. "Coherent."

"Oh that? I've had worse." Shepard replied.

"Yes, I hear you have." Thane remarked, turning his gaze forward once more.

"From what I hear," Shepard said, hoping to steer the topic of conversation away from the path it would lead down. "You were a pretty good hanar operative before you joined the Marines."

"Yes I was. Although not the most secure job in the galaxy, I excelled at it." Not a hint of arrogance entered his voice, it was simply said like any other fact.

"So why'd you join the Marines then?" Shepard asked, moving onto the yogurt portion of his meal.

"The EDC is one of the largest militaries in the galaxy. You're technology and numbers are the biggest deterrent to aggression and the reasons why, up until yesterday, you were at peace." He stated.

"You didn't answer my question." Shepard said, trying to make nice with the alien was frustrating when everything he said seemed to be in the form of cryptic messages.

"My apologies. What I was getting at was that it's a relatively stable profession for someone of my skills. I have-" He stopped himself. "_Had_ a wife. Before she died, we had a son. Joining the Marines lets me to see him far more regularly than my previous employment would have allowed."

Shepard relaxed a little, he hadn't worked with aliens extensively before, but Thane was becoming less of an unknown with every minute that passed by. Shepard was surprised by the revelation, however, the former assassin didn't strike him as a family man.

"How is your son, if you don't mind me asking?" Shepard said in between bites.

"He works as a C-Sec officer on the Citadel, he was just accepted a few weeks ago." The drell replied.

"Congratulations." Shepard said before finishing the last of his imitation oatmeal.

"Thank you. I-" A chirp from his omnitool interrupted him and he let out a small smile. "Excuse me, but I need to take this in my quarters. Good day, Commander."

"Nice talking with you Thane."

* * *

Context and bias was lost as purely truth filtered through to him, all the result of a process that ran along a network stretching across the vast organism of galactic society.

The slow burn of the brandy rippled down his throat and chased after the previously inhaled toxins from the expensive cigar. Constant scans of text and video turning the process from a voluntary action, to an automated routine.

Efficiency, if nothing else.

The shape of a human, unremarkable except for his service record and the singular paragraph dedicated to the five letter planet that had shaped him into what he was replaced all else. Hidden surveillance methods provided the data needed for his _other_ to categorise, assimilate and assess.

Yes, he would do rather nicely.

Another sip of brandy, methodical and precise slipped down his throat, his face illuminated by the pale sunset red reflecting off the perfectly clear tiles as his eyes hunted for more text.

The display closest to him changed from orange to green, authorisation codes and a security watermark confirming that his appointment was going ahead as scheduled.

"_They'll be here in little over an hour._" A woman, almost as dedicated as he yet only half as intricate and precise. Her voice echoed across the room, the Hyperwave communicator doing little to mask her accent.

"Good. Are you prepared for our friends to make their entrance?" Another drag of pure tobacco.

"_I am. What happens if they fail?"_ She was asking all the right questions. Good.

"Then they'll move onto their contingency. You've already seen the data." Solar flare number two hundred and six caused him to squint ever so slightly.

_"That cruise liner will arrive for the quarian in just over fifteen hours. What's to stop them from decimating the station?" _Expressing doubt. Previous statement retracted.

"_He_ will. Failing that the EDC will take matters into their own hands, whether or not C-Sec and the Council give them permission." Bottle empty.

"_Our plans will be set back if it comes that."_ Irritation. Termination of conversation advised.

"Never underestimate our ability to thrive. We survived XCOM. Now we are everything they dreamed of being and more." His legs uncrossed, the implants aching just enough to annoy. "Prepare for their arrival and contact mister Wilson, his services will soon be required."

* * *

He arrived on the bridge just as the now familiar surge of power associated with a mass relay sheathed the frigate, propelling it over the vast, unquantifiable blackness of space.

The feeling of weight shifting values and then returning to normal accompanied the feeling of acceleration before both ended suddenly. The viewing cameras located on the bow instantly snapped back into operation as normal ship functions resumed. Shepard peered out and took in the view of the vast sea of space they were displaying. They were surrounded by thick violet fog, the signature feature of the Serpent Nebula. The gas cloud obscured their sensor systems as they waded through its vast expanse, another reason why the Citadel had been given its name.

Far from impenetrable to modern equipment, the haptic display in front of the helmsman lit up with the passive emissions and ID tags of thousands of ships, big and small, from all corners of Citadel space. An incoming transmission displayed that the gas cloud didn't do much to obscure their heat wake and ship signature either.

"_EDS Normandy, state the reason for your arrival." _A voice, an asari from the sounds of it and not of the pleasant kind so often displayed in the vids.

_"Spectre business. We're transporting Nihlus kryik and EDC officials for a hearing with the Council." _Joker replied.

"_Acknowledged. Presidium dock four two two has been assigned to you. Be advised, deviating from the assigned flight path is considered an endangerment to the Citadel and will be treated as a hostile act."_

"Roger that Citadel Control." Joker ended the transmission and let a scowl cross his face. "Man, sounds like they forgot to let everyone know it was menopause appreciation month."

"Just do as the nice lady asked, Joker, unless you want the damages to come out of your paycheck." Shepard said, taking in the full splendour of the truly massive station as it grew in scope.

"Huh, try that one and it'd take so long we'd have zombies on top of everything else. Oh wait, we already _do_." Joker replied.

Shepard stopped paying attention and let the spectacle of the station and the defense fleet capture his attention. Hundreds of ships, mainly turian in design stood guard along the approach vectors that the vast swarm of civilian ships utilised to deliver goods and bedazzled tourists onto the station proper. The screen was dominated by the huge cross shaped dreadnought, _Destiny Ascension, _standing guard in the center of the outstretched arms. The truly massive vessel could give even a Constellation Class dreadnought pause with its huge main gun. If the the cruisers surrounding her were the Citadels shield, she was most definitely its sword.

She was not the only big gun available to the CDF. Two dagger shaped turian dreadnoughts flanked by several streamlined and oval shaped asari cruisers slowly moved along the length of the wards, main guns armed and scanning. Thousands of ships from the council races made up the truly massive CDF, enough to occupy the entire Terminus Systems and still leave enough vessels to fend off even the largest of attacks. Add in the fact that the Serpent Nebula was a defensive layer in itself, and the name of the station wasn't all that surprising.

'Pretty impressive, isn't it?" A voice thick with a Scandinavian accent caused Shepard to turn around, bringing his eyes towards the muscular form of lieutenant Kasper Stahl.

"It's my first time visiting." Shepard admitted.

"Well, word of advice, Commander, humans aren't welcome here." The six foot three MEC pilot brought himself up towards the point where Shepard was standing, the view growing increasingly impressive. "I used to be stationed at the second embassy on Shalta Ward, a lot of nasty shit happened while I was there."

"Such as?" Shepard asked.

"Too much to tell in five minutes. All I can say is never underestimate a hanar. Doing that," He tapped on the mechanical prosthetic that functioned as his left arm. "Cost me this."

The prosthetic matched the huge bulk of the man, clearly larger than a standard augmentation. MEC pilots were required to interface with their suits as if they were a second skin, meaning that their augs required extra fine tuning and calibrations, along with a healthy amount of armour and strength enhancers. Shepard didn't doubt that the man had put in several upgrades to it as well, judging by the omnisheath meant for a flash fabricated blade.

"A big stupid jellyfish ended up costing our resident space viking his arm?" Joker butted in, only half paying attention to the controls.

"And untied boot laces ended up fracturing most of the bones in your legs last week." Stahl jested back.

"Touche." The helmsman replied, choosing to cut his losses.

Shepard ignored the conversation, trying to make out all the different makes and models of the various ships that sped by. His sight was captured by one vessel in particular, mainly because apart from the _Normandy_, it was the only other ship transmitting an EDC tag.

"That looks like one of our heavies, the _Odin_." Shepard pointed out.

"Yep, she's on her way to Bekenstein, set to transport Admiral Sawyer tomorrow to take command of the Rapid Reaction Fleet there." Joker replied.

"Oh the garrison there is going to _love_ having him." Stahl chuckled.

The battleship took up three whole standard berths with her massive bulk. The ship looked comically large compared to all the freighters docked next to it as well as the C-Sec patrol vessels securing the surrounding space. Her main laser turrets were capable of scything through frigates and cruisers with ease and the other countless armaments meant that even a dreadnought would be in trouble if it got in close.

The _Normandy_ continued on its approach, weaving through several holographic checkpoints as it advanced further and further towards the Presidium. The various arms that were home to the seventeen million people occupying the station grew larger and seemed to grab the frigate, drawing her closer and closer to the center of the station. The shine of yellow and orange neon intermingled with the blue running lights of the various freighters and warships and gave the whole sprawling metropoli of the wards a hypnotising opulence.

The shimmering city lights soon dimmed as the frigate maneuvered towards the docking bay, warning lights, advertisements and maintenance tugs pockmarking their route as the hangar soon encompassed the full resolution of the hull cameras. It was coloured the traditional C-Sec blue, large clamps for ships of all sizes stood idle and Shepard could see several aircars sweeping the hangar exterior for anything or anyone that didn't belong.

The frigate cruised into the dock, scanners sweeping her exterior for security purposes while the dock defense guns adjusted to face the human vessel. A moment passed and docking clamps latched onto the hull and quartet of engines, holding the ship in place with an unwavering grip.

"Alright people, lets go make nice with the politicians." Shepard said.

* * *

The members of the ground team present on Eden Prime followed Shepard and Anderson into the airlock, all clad in the light armoured hardsuits that counted as appropriate attire. The EDC mindset of total protection bleeding through all the way to regulation clothing, ensuring that even casual fatigues were equipped with armour plating and a shield generator. Nihlus joined them, still wearing the blood stained red and black armour he'd worn on Eden Prime. Shepard hadn't seen him since the incident with the beacon, but the turian seemed a lot less focused than when that mission had started. None of them were unarmed, all, save for Nihlus, carrying a service laser pistol just in case of any surprises that the residents of the Citadel had to offer.

The airlock hissed open as the decontamination process ended and the assortment of Marines plus one Spectre strode out onto the platform overlooking the diplomatic docks assigned to the various Citadel governments and associate members. It was organised chaos, tug ships hauling out some of the larger vessels with their mass effect arrays while dock security ships herded others safely into port. The self contained atmosphere made the usually mute sound of engines loud and the smell of discharging drive cores pungent, hurrying guests into the climate controlled areas inside the facility proper.

As they made their way into the narrow corridor, they were greeted by two assault rifle wielding C-Sec officers, a salarian and, surprisingly, a human. Behind them stood a turian in full armour, but not C-Sec regulation gear, it more heavily resembled hierarchy issued hardsuits but modified with several third party upgrades. Shepard mentally assessed the threat, calculating that the C-Sec officers were less of a priority given that the turian with blue tattoos and optical visor was equipped with enough guns to threaten a fully equipped platoon.

The C-Sec guards moved to initiate their standard sweep and scan of the new arrivals but stopped as Nihlus used his Spectre status to override their procedure. Confused looks and small shrugs were exchanged between the pair before both returned to their previous positions at the guard post. The turian behind them had followed just behind, the fact that Nihlus' show of authority hadn't waved him off meant that he either wasn't a part of C-Sec and instead present for some other reason, or that he was part of C-Sec and was coming to greet them.

His vast amount of weaponry made the practical side of Shepard think the former. The Lieutenant Commander began to reflexively reach for his pistol in preparation but stopped as Nihlus moved ahead of everyone else. There was a pause as the rest of the humans also stopped, Anderson's expression mimicking the concern Shepard had.

The two turians approached each other, looking the other over as if they were judging whether to engage in close combat. Another second passed before their body language relaxed and both greeted each other with a quick hug, mandibles flickering as though they were long lost friends. The shore party stopped, confused at the sudden display of emotion from the usually stoic Spectre who moved to introduce the new arrival.

"Captain Anderson, Commander Shepard, this is my protege, Garrus Vakarian, he's soon to be inducted into the Spectre's later on this week." Nihlus said, only a small hint of pride slipping loose. Shepard and Anderson both exchanged handshakes with the soon to be Spectre, the three of them expressing only a small amount of awkwardness at the informal behaviour.

"I heard what happened on Eden Prime, figured I better rush down here to meet you once I heard you got a ride back with the _Normandy_." The shade of orange covering his armour stood in contrast to the crimson of Nihlus and the metallic grey of the human contingent.

"That information isn't exactly public knowledge." Stahl said from behind and Shepard could hear the frown he was making.

"Soon to be Spectre's are no less informed than their active counterparts, and besides, Nihlus already let us know how he was getting back." The tune of Garrus' voice was very matter of fact, but Shepard could hear the trace of annoyance in it.

"That reminds me," He continued. "The Council want to speak with you personally before the hearing." He jabbed a finger at Nihlus.

"I was expecting that. Garrus, show Captain Anderson and his crew to the embassy, I have a feeling that the Council will want to talk sooner, rather than later." Nihlus said.

The turian cocked his head at the the request, mandibles flickering slightly. His eyes looked over the Marines and Shepard saw what he equated to a look of confusion on his face.

"Uh, isn't that something that C-Sec would be better suited for?" Garrus said, turning his attention back to Nihlus.

"I'm sorry, Garrus, I wasn't aware that escorting VIP's with crucial information for the Council was suddenly outside your duties." Nihlus' eyes lost all signs of pride, becoming cold and calculating. He moved closer to tower over his protege, eyes matching his all the while.

"Of course not, Sir, I'll get it done." Garrus straightened as his tone lost its edge.

"Good. I'll meet up with you in the hearing."

_Oh boy, hotshot tourist guide,_ Shepard thought in annoyance.

Garrus simply nodded as Nihlus swung towards another hallway and summoned a C-Sec aircar to ferry him to the Presidium. Garrus motioned for them to follow as they all piled into a nearby elevator that would take them to Citadel Security HQ. The shore party crawled through the few remaining security checkpoints before they actually reached the elevator, the C-Sec guards seeming to take as much time as possible in scanning and searching the Marines.

A few agonising minutes of the excruciatingly slow descent accompanied by Kaidan offering to cut the cables and let gravity accelerate their descent past by before they reached the interior proper of the C-Sec facility dedicated to the Presidium. Dozens of officers, predominantly made up of the Council races but with a handful human and even an elcor passed them by, all heavily armed and outfitted with the distinctive blue and black armour that was synonymous with C-Sec.

"A little heavily armed for a location housing politicians and bureaucrats, don't you think?" Kaidan mused.

"C-Sec's just as much a police force as it is an army. The Citadel isn't a city, it's effectively a city _state." _Garrus responded, his formerly cocky tone now one of slight annoyance. "They're hear to protect the station from external threats just as much as they police the wards."

"I guess that's explains the gunships and hovertanks that we saw on the way here." Shepard said.

The C-Sec building looked more like a self contained military base than a police station, housing everything from a Special Response detachment complete with armour and air assets to holding cells and a vast armoury. Shepard's eyes had also caught glimpses of possible housings for auto turrets and blast doors meant to ward off intruders as well as the fact that its layout of of stairs, walls and points of entry made it an ideal area to stand and hold ground.

Trudging through the rest of security was a chore, not helped by the fact that Stahl almost broke the arm of a salarian trying to scan his prosthetic augment. Anderson had reprimanded him afterwards and thankfully the choking authority of Citadel Security slackened as they reached the aircar station. The EDC embassy had already been warned of their arrival and sent transport, though Shepard wondered how inconspicuous a Kodiak shuttle flying with an armed aircar escort would be on the Citadel, especially since they weren't unmarked.

The situation of the EDC presence on the station was unique, the humans having been granted an embassy on the Presidium as well as having bought a medium sized skyscraper complex on Shalta Ward in an area where buildings of similar size were few and far between. Galactic politics and the way humans had made their debut onto the galactic stage at the business end of dreadnought weapons meant that aliens were wary of humans at best, openly hostile at worst. The EDC had wanted a less accessible and more secluded embassy located on the Presidium but C-Sec had refused, and thus it was only occupied by event organisers and low value staff, a convenient distraction that lured away anti human protesters.

"There's something that's bugging me," Kaidan said from the back of the shuttle. "Last I heard, Admiral Sawyer had been discharged a few years ago, why's he in command of the _Odin_?"

"The Brass started mobilising everything and everyone they could after what happened on Eden Prime was confirmed," Anderson replied. "Former officers come first, while the grunts get put back into service later. Sawyer was career military before being discharged, he was back in uniform with a reinstatement letter before we'd even left the Exodus Cluster."

"Is the Executive Council really that spooked sir?" Shepard chimed in.

"They just approved the construction of three entire _fleets_, Shepard, if that's not a sign that they're collectively shitting their pants, I don't know what is." The calm shuttle ride and the buzz of engine noise did nothing to hide the dread at what was to come in Anderson's voice.

Human naval forces that were bolstered by laser weapons and non element zero tech had already spooked the Citadel into developing their own versions and countermeasures. Efforts for both were bolstered by the tech exchange requirements levelled on the EDC when they had joined, leading to widespread employment of ablative armour on Citadel warships and ground forces, though its effectiveness was still poor in terms of protection. Laser tech was still frustratingly far away for Citadel forces, however, though that hadn't stopped rumours of them being employed in organisations like the STG.

"The Citadel isn't going to be happy about that," Garrus joined in. "An associate member running roughshod on the Terminus Systems on your way to the Veil is going to make a lot of people uneasy."

The fact that EDC warships could still reliably defeat enemy forces with their weapons and that their already impressive numbers were being bolstered would strain already stressed relations between the EDC and the Council, not to mention the potential for war by moving through the Terminus.

"You'd think they'd stop being surprised when we act like this, hell, the turians would have already launched an offensive into the Veil by now. If they actually treated us fairly and helped us defend our colonies, we wouldn't be in this situation " Stahl said adamantly.

"That's not fair, no one could have seen this coming." Garrus shot back.

"Of course not, just like the Salarians didn't even bother telling us about the pirates preparing for the Blitz." Stahl countered.

"Enough. We're almost at the embassy, so shut up and at least look friendly." Anderson said.

The airborne convoy made good time, arriving at the designated transport nexus in little under seven minutes. Unlike the Wards, the Presidium wasn't crowded, with access being granted only to VIP's and their staff. Consequently, anyone present was more concerned with schedule reports and the sudden shift in galactic politics than with causing trouble for the four armoured humans and their heavily armed turian escort.

A brisk walk led them to the small office space allocated to the EDC, overlooking the large spiraling park and waterways than ran the length of the Presidium, along with the scores of walkways and sanitary white colour theme. Artificial lighting and weather controls simulated traditional day and night cycles, though the automated settings had the weather tuned to a fine summers day, in contrast with the clouded atmosphere that greeted them upon entering the embassy.  
Garrus stayed behind, heading back to the shuttle area once they had arrived, allowing the humans to face the political music.

"Ambassador I don't give a damn about the political consequences, this is the situation and you _will_ work with it. Adapt and survive or we'll find someone else who can." The doors to the main offices opened, and the two arguing figures turned to face the new arrivals. The closest was darker skinned than the other, a hunched back and greying hair going hand in hand with his weathered complexion and tired body language.

The man opposite him sported military fatigues, greying hair just like his counterpart with a thick running scar that marked the right side of his head. His face was a scowl and the shimmers of distortion running along his body indicated that his presence in the room was holographic in nature.  
Shepard was taken aback, the hologram was that of General Williams, defender of Shanxi and head of the EDC's defense committee. What was he doing dealing with the political side of things?

"Get it done, Udina." The General flickered out of existence, leaving the ambassador to greet the new guests.

"Captain Anderson, I see you've brought half your crew with you." Udina scowled as he turned towards them.

"Just those who were in command on the extraction run on Eden Prime." Anderson scowled back. "In case you had any questions."

The shore party shuffled into the room, the lack of security methods beyond the genetic scanner in the hallway being a welcome surprise. The office was, save for Udina's desk, spartan in appearance. Hardly any documents or personal decorations were present, save for the waiting area's leather chairs and opulent coffee table.

"I have their mission reports. Right now I'm trying to stop this political shitstorm from snowballing out of control." Udina said, running his fingers through his closely cropped hair as he started to pace around the room. "Your actions on Eden Prime haven't exactly helped smooth things along."

"Our actions? We weren't the ones that attacked the planet." Kaidan replied.

"No but you let the Chief of the Colonial Defense Committee's granddaughter get killed, to say he's upset can't even begin to describe the situation." Udina shot back.

"That was Saren's fault, not theirs, and they did the best they could considering the circumstances." Anderson growled at Udina, the politician losing some of his venom at the retort.

"Relax Captain, you'll need that anger if we're to make any headway in the hearing. Especially with Admiral Sawyer present." Udina became more deflated as he delivered the end of the sentence.

Admiral Sawyer had earned a reputation leading the anti piracy efforts in the Attican Traverse, becoming known for being tactically adept as well as being a political nightmare. His efforts had meant that the Skyllian Blitz had lost a lot of its support structure before it had even begun, and why Shepard and other EDC soldiers like Admiral Hackett had been able to repel the pirates with minimal loss of life.

Unfortunately he had stepped on a lot of toes getting results, the final straw having been when an EDC patrol under his command had accidentally boarded a Hierarchy transport on the border of the Traverse, leading to a diplomatic incident that had further frozen relations between the two powers. Being a good soldier wasn't enough to prevent him from being retired to a mountain home on Bekenstein.

"I thought we were the only military personnel required at the hearing?" Shepard asked, puzzled that C-Sec would even let someone like Sawyer onto the station, let alone into the Council chambers.

"Special request from General Williams. He wants someone on his end to make sure we convince the aliens to let us go after Saren, or at least, get _them_ to." Udina said, grabbing a datapad from his desk while the whine of passing aircars passed through the room.

"That shouldn't be too difficult, especially with that dreadnought, the ethereals and the geth all supporting him." Anderson replied.

"Your optimism is admirable, Captain, but I fear we'll have to resort to gunboat diplomacy to sift through the aliens mountain of bureaucratic bull."

* * *

They departed half an hour later, the Council apparently having brought the meeting forward at the urging of Nihlus, heading towards the enormous Presidium tower that jutted out into the gas clouds surrounding the station. Garrus had moved onto another assignment regarding a ship in the Wards, leaving the humans without his company. They were joined by a four car C-Sec escort, apparently the urgency of the matter warranted extra precautions, and the fact that humans were unpopular on the Citadel didn't help. The usual checkpoints and security methods were wavered, and their escort peeled off once they were at the tower proper, the shuttle docking at the VIP receiving station which was reserved for diplomats and other equally important individuals.

From there they took an elevator ride to the Council Chambers. Shepard mused that the elevator was a psychological weapon as much as a method of transport, designed to prevent diplomats with anger problems from exploding in hearings, instead forcing them to cool down as the elevators took a good five minutes to actually reach their destination.

_Or maybe the Council are just petty._

The striking feature of the upper tower levels was just how _clean_ they were. There was absolutely no waste material at all to be found, the tower apparently kept sanitized by the small army of Keepers and custodians employed by the Citadel. The other striking feature was how everything was real. The Presidium ring that housed the embassy's employed artificial lighting, synthetic flora and recycled water to contrast the bone white decor.

The Council chambers had the genuine environment, real trees and fresh water pulled from ice comets elsewhere in system, while the only thing artificial about the surroundings was the lighting and chambers themselves. Shepard even thought he smelt the faint hint of strawberries in the air as they marched through the cavernous area.

"Captain, please remind your crew to refrain from making any outbursts during the course of the hearing, this is going to be hard enough without them saying something stupid." Udina grumbled, not waiting for a reply as he moved ahead to meet the Council and brief them on the situation.

"Riveting company he makes." Kaidan chuckled as Udina moved out of earshot. The lieutenant moved to a nearby table, grabbing a seat and getting comfortable at the thought of the wait to be summoned.

"Doesn't exactly give you hope that he'll do much, does it, Commander?" Stahl said, moving to feel the now blooming cherry blossom tree in the center of the waiting area.

Shepard was about to say something when two turian C-Sec officers made their way over from the nearby security kiosk, making a bee line towards rifles shouldered and heads obscured by their helmets, they moved directly towards the Psy, grabbing him by his shoulders from behind and began to wrestle with him as he struggled to get out of their grip. Shepard reacted reflexively, unholstering his pistol as the rest of the party did the same, levelling them at the C-Sec officers.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" Shepard shouted, the barrel of his pistol only a few inches away from one of the turian's helmet's. The rest of the team moved to surround them, power cells glowing on the blocky weapons.

"I could ask you the same thing, don't you know the rules?" The turian replied, letting go of Kaidan and pointing his rifle back at Shepard. They were so close that the rifle was inside his shield's protective envelope, meaning that any round fired would go through the armour plating on his fatigues and likely kill him. Everyone was rigid, not willing to make any sudden developments while onlookers scurried away at the sudden standoff.

"What rules?" Kaidan shouted, purple energy coursing over his body as his psionics were let loose and allowed to flow freely.

"No psy's allowed in the Council Chambers, who the hell let you in?" The Turian spat, weapon never wavering.

A figure in dark green armour suddenly appeared behind the turian, accompanied by others adorned with the same protective gear, levelling multiple side arms at the backs of the C-Sec officers. Shepard's HUD had engaged at the sign of hostilities and marked the new arrivals as friendlies, though they were still in the process of being ID'd by his onboard computer.

"Son, I really wouldn't try that, not unless you've suddenly developed the ability to breathe through a new hole in your head." The voice was gruff, hard, and came from a man who had had to deal with far more bullshit than any sane person should have to. A heartbeat later and the suit identified Rear Admiral Sawyer as a the new arrival, flanked by several heavily armoured Marines.

From out the corner of his eye, Shepard spotted more C-Sec officers moving to surround the group, at least a dozen clad in heavy combat armour that was undoubtedly meant to resist laser fire. Not for prolonged periods, but enough to gun down the humans long before their armour failed from repeated fire.

"Everybody stand down." Nihlus' voice came out of the background as he jogged down the stairs leading to the audience platform, omnitool transmitting identification and procedure overrides via Spectre authority to the the present C-Sec officers. They stayed tense for a moment longer, assault rifles slowly being faced upwards and then holstered as the confrontation came to an end. The humans followed suit, reluctantly holstering laser pistols as the threat disappeared.

"Captain, I'm afraid the officer is correct in his statement. I can have Lieutenant Alenko stay here but he won't be allowed to see the Council, not even I can overrule that regulation." Shepard turned to Kaidan who was busy hauling himself to his feet, the violet aura surrounding him dissipating as he calmed himself. He bit down a slight tinge of primal anger, the sight of psionics in person whilst not under the full effects of combat adrenaline made him uncomfortable at the show of mental power.

_!F**E**ed **mE**!_

Shepard grabbed his head, the sight of Cain coming into his mind and pulling out his memories, his cherished moments, his nights spent on ships as they cruised across the cosmos. He bit down, the hyperventilation kicking in, sparking a warning on his suit sensors. Everyone in the squad suddenly turned to him as their HUD's flashed a warning of the sudden panic attack.

_No! Not here!_

He forced himself to slow down, his heart lowering from a sprint to a slow jog as his lungs sucked in a mouthful of air. His shaking hands calming and returning to normal as he felt someone put their hand on his shoulder. It was Anderson, his eyes looking to see what was wrong. They flashed with recognition and he ordered the squad to make their way to the steps of the council platform while he stayed with Shepard. The Captain spoke with his eyes, willing the panicked Commando to calm down as the newly arrived humans approached. There were four of them, and unlike the rest of the _Normandy's_ shore party, they wore not casual fatigues but full combat armour. How they got onto the Presidium in that was anyones guess.

"Commander Shepard, report." Came the gruff voice again. Shepard brought his head up, the heavy breathing and panic attack symptoms subsiding as he faced the source of the voice.

He was an older man, in his late sixties at least, a receding hairline and permanent frown marking his wrinkled face. He wore his soil brown hair short, full Marine cut while his armour hid his athletic body and muscles behind plates of duranium armour.

"Sir." Shepard saluted, his body ramrod straight as he expertly hid his still subsiding reaction. Anderson saluted as well, the two men equal in height to the third.

"At ease." Sawyer said, bringing his eyes away from the duo as he ordered his men past towards the Normandy's away team, the pair moving without question. "Commander Shepard, good to see you alive. Captain Anderson, same goes to you."

"Good to see you as well Admiral." Anderson replied.

"Yeah, well, Williams had to get someone to yell at from his ivory tower on the Defense Committee. Chitchat later, gentleman, I have a feeling Udina's about to burst a blood vessel just waiting for us." Sawyer stated, leading the two men towards the audience platform steps.

* * *

The three soldiers made their way up to the platform, a crowd having gathered at the start of the hearing and forcing them them to wade through as politely as three Commandos could. Shepard could make out the voice of a woman, distinctly Asari as they reached the top of the steps, meaning that it had to be Councilor Tevos addressing the human delegation.

"As per the report forwarded to us by Spectre Nihlus Kryik, the Council has stripped Saren Arterius of his Spectre status and confirmed his complicity in the attack on Eden Prime." Tevos said, the vast open auditorium amplifying her voice as she stood in front of the huge open windows giving a view of the Serpent Nebula. "We are tasking C-Sec and the Spectre office with bringing him to justice for his crimes."

"That's not good enough!" Udina's nasally voice was unpleasantly amplified across the room as he launched into his tirade. "This Spectre attacked our world in co-operation with the ethereals and the geth, we demand the council support us in responding to this threat!"

"You do not get to make demands of the Council, _Ambassador."_ Councillor Sparatus, the turian representative and head of the anti EDC bloc on the Citadel spat back, the red markings on his face illuminating his smoldering resentment.

"The Council has found no reason to believe that the geth and the so called "ethereals" pose any threat to Citadel space. All reports indicate that they were after the beacon on Eden Prime, and with that destroyed, they retreated back beyond the Veil." The Salarian Councillor, Valern intervened, heading the potential verbal sparring match off course before it could begin.

"All reports indicate that Saren and his fleet are still roaming the Terminus, they haven't retreated behind the Veil like you claim." Udina replied.

"All _your_ reports. The STG hasn't found any evidence to support that statement." Valern said.

Udina scowled at the salarian and his casual dismissal of the intelligence reports. While human media was filled with conjecture and bias, their portrayal of the Council as stubborn and unwilling to listen seemed at least somewhat accurate.

"You would be far more serious about this matter if the geth attacked a turian colony!" Udian shouted. "But since it was a human world, you're willing to just sweep it under the rug, how typical."

"This matter _will _be resolved, Ambassador. Saren will be brought to justice for his crimes." Tevos answered.

"I won't hold my breath, given your spectacular foresight in dealing with issues like the Krogan." Udina snarled.

"You dare?" Sparatus snapped. "You humans are so arrogant as to think that the law is beneath you and that the whole galaxy should just accommodate your every whim."

"I'm sure the colonists on Antirum share your sentiment, _Councillor,_" Udina smirked "After all, the Turian Hierarchy has shown just how much they _care_ about adhering to the Citadel regulations regarding first contact protocol."

"Antirum?" Sparatus shouted, rising to Udina's challenge. "You butchered innocent fam-

"Enough!" Tevos snapped, cutting in and cutting the microphones of both speakers, her usually calm voice full of irritation. "We are here to discuss the matter of Eden Prime, not events that are long past." She finished, scowling at both Udina and Sparatus.

Murmurs from the crowd echoed across the chamber, the onlookers rarely afforded a look at a debate as intense as the one taking place. Tevos especially was regarded as being the calmest of the three, her voice rarely rising to a shout. That she had just silenced Sparatus made meant that this was no ordinary hearing.

"The EDC is a Citadel member," Udina said, starting anew. "We _will _respond to attacks on our worlds to the fullest extent of our abilities, as well as those who would deny us that right."

"Are you threatening us?" Valern responded, his eyes now visible from the interior of his intricately crafted robe.

"No, Councillor, I am simply making a statement." Udina said. "The EDC will be launching combat operations into the Perseus Veil shortly, whether we have your permission or not."

"The Terminus Systems will not take kindly to a Citadel member stampeding across their space." Tevos remarked, clearing her throat. "Especially given that we have no credible evidence that the geth and ethereals mean to pursue a campaign against any more human systems."

Shepard's head began to throb at the pointless sniping between the four politicians. The importance of the hearing was apparently outweighed by old prejudices and rivalries that clouded reason and logic, both Udina and the Councilors engaging in the verbal standoff. They hadn't been on Eden Prime during the fighting, they hadn't seen the destruction that Saren and the geth were capable of and the fact that they were placing a higher priority on pointless verbal sparring than on peoples lives annoyed him greatly.

"That is complete bullshit!" Shepard and everyone else turned back to see Sawyer pointing a finger menacingly at the three alien politicians.

Anderson, Shepard and Udina each held an expression of equal parts horror, confusion and surprise at the Admirals outburst, watching as he made his way to the podium Udina was standing behind and shoved the Ambassador out of the way, reactivating the microphone and clearing his throat.

"None of you, Udina included, know just how serious this situation is." Sawyer shouted. "Commander Shepard, however, led the extraction team on Eden Prime and can personally testify to the damage done by the enemy. Give him a chance to speak."

Everybody turned towards Shepard, mixed emotions on every face. Sparatus was the first to recover from the outburst, keying his microphone to project his voice across the chamber.

"This human has no place to speak here, he is not humanity's representative and this is a highly important matter." He stated, annoyed at the Admiral's segway into the deliberation.

Tevos killed both Sawyer and Sparatus' microphones, saying something inaudible to both the turian representative and Valern. The short conversation continued for only a few seconds, before both nodded towards the older asari.

"I withdraw my objection." Sparatus said somewhat bitterly.

"Commander Shepard, please step forward." Tevos asked.

The human did as requested, stepping by Anderson and a visibly furious Udina towards the guest podium. Sawyer stepped back and allowed him to pass, the microphone reactivating and reidentifying the new user for the audience present in the upper viewing platforms.

"Thank you for giving me the chance to speak, Councillors" He stated.

"Commander Shepard, you were present on Eden Prime during the attack and led the effort to recover the beacon with Nihlus, that gives you insight that we lack in this situation," Tevos said, ignoring the scowl from Sparatus with little effort. "What is your personal opinion of the threat posed by Saren and the geth?"

Shepard paused, thinking back to the slaughter he'd witnessed on the garden world and how little the garrison on the ground had been able to do once orbital support had been lost.

"My opinion?" Shepard started."My opinion is that one of the best Council Spectres has found a reason that is enticing enough to betray everything he stands for. That he has somehow found humanity's oldest enemy and allied himself with them." He paused briefly to let the statement sink in. "That he has a dreadnought that surpasses even the most powerful vessels available to the Council and EDC and is supported by an enemy that has been in isolation for over three hundred years."

"Frankly Councillors," He continued. "I'm scared. I also highly doubt that someone like Saren, who is reportedly famous for his long term thinking, would let his life be destroyed by a short term gain like the Prothean beacon. My opinion, is that this is not an isolated attack and that he will strike again, and not just against a human world. This is a threat that we _all _have to be ready for."

The chamber went silent, save for the murmurs of the crowd that had grown considerably since the start of the hearing. Shepard could see the emotions on all three of the Council members faces, all trying to decide whether he was correct or whether to let prejudice win out. Tevos was the first to speak.

"There is wisdom in what you say." She stated. "Perhaps we have been letting certain. . . preconceptions colour the reality of the situation."

_Yeah, no shit,_ Shepard thought.

"Yes, yes you're right Commander, this is a matter that impacts all of us." Udina said as he approached from behind, the wind taken out of his sails at Shepard's words.

Sparatus didn't bother speaking. His face was flush with conflicting thought processes telling him to go either way with the discussion. His mind finally conceded the point as Valern voiced his agreement with Tevos and Udina, causing him to throw in with them.

"We could perhaps lend our intelligence services and material support for your efforts, Ambassador, but military aid will have to be discussed at a later date after further consideration of the political repercussions." Valern said, Tevos continuing his olive branch statement.

"We could also consider granting military access to a small joint task force in order to pursue Saren," She said, scratching her scalp in relief. "Though they will have to be accompanied by a Spectre in order to ensure that reasonable applications of force are followed."

"I accept your offer Councilors," Udina replied, taking over as SHepard stepped back from the podium. "We can arrange for the details to be discussed at a later date." The ambassador finished, his tone evident that despite being interrupted, he was more than happy with the result of the disruption.

"Yes, we will convene in two hours time to discuss the matter further. This hearing is adjourned." Tevos finished, the microphones of all speakers deactivating as her sentence ended.

Shepard looked back at Anderson and Sawyer, the two of them accompanied by Stahl. All looked like they had witnessed a nuke go off in their face and lived through the shockwave. Sawyer just laughed.

* * *

They left the Presidium just as quickly as they had come, departing this time via unmarked Kodiak shuttle towards the Shalta Ward embassy, the C-Sec guards all too eager to get the humans and their Psy lieutenant out of sight and off their hands. This gave them ample time to observe the Wards below as they made the fifteen minute commute towards the main embassy.

Towering structures of glass and steel set ablaze by ivy vine holographic advertising adorned their view. They displayed commercials for every extravagant product that was the latest craze throughout the galaxy as well as other things such as mercenary outfits looking to recruit new members and colony worlds out in the Terminus seeking new sources of funding. Shepard even saw an ad for a new album by a duo dressed in retro synthetic helmets.

The Wards were more than what they appeared, however. They were all vastly interconnected urban sprawls, each having their own atmosphere that allowed anything under seven meters in height to breathe the filtered air pumped throughout the station by the vast machines serviced by the Keepers. Traffic above the Wards was heavily enforced and aircars were separated into distinct lines of transit. This was necessary, else untold numbers of accidents would occur and countless lives would be lost.

The situation was unusual though, the hearing had been adjourned and not half an hour after it had ended, a high priority message had been sent via Sawyer to him. His presence had been requested at the embassy before he returned to the _Normandy_ with Anderson. Confusing thoughts clouded his feeling of relief of the political situation all the way to the embassy landing pad.

The complex itself was impressive. The skyscraper, and a small section of the surrounding buildings, had been bought by the EDC for a small fortune. Heavy security methods and repeated protests had forced them to keep several sub buildings available to the four companies of Marines assigned to its protection, as well as have a buffer against people with less than savoury intentions.

Shepard stepped out of the shuttle, his arrival greeted by six heavily armed Marines, no doubt part of a response platoon waiting to burst into action at even the slightest whiff of trouble. He was scanned by one of them, his armours ID tag confirming who he was. He was lead further into the building, through biometric scanners, retinal identifiers and past several of the priciest pieces of security technology in the galaxy while the rest of his squad was diverted to a holding area. The EDC had suffered one bombing from an impersonator of an embassy worker, they weren't about to give him a break.

Thirty minutes later, he emerged from the security area and into the main lobby of the embassy, led by a clerk who seemed far too quiet for the bustle present in the building. He marched through various further checkpoints for the next five minutes, finally reaching a room that was located in the buildings strengthened core. It was more akin to a bunker than an assigned office area, probably due to military renovations and equal parts paranoia. The clerk ushered him through and then left, the door closing behind him in such a way that Shepard guessed that it was reinforced with armour plating and intelligence countermeasures.

"Hello?" he asked to no one, the room almost a pitch black even to his augmented eyes. Another security measure.

A hologram popped up in the middle of the room, its display requesting he interface with it. He walked over, placing his palm on on its pad and it began to glow green, swiping over his hand and displaying his entire service record.

"_Stand by for transmission. Origin: Executive Council." _The androgynous voice of a VI echoed through the room and Shepard straightened. The Executive Council was wanting to talk to him? For what?

The hologram disappeared, replaced by a large screen that flickered into being. A moment past before it morphed to show the image of a man, darkness obscuring his features as a high intensity light shone behind him. The glare of the light served to hinder any identification, but Shepard could still make out small details such as his balding head, the cherry red tie he wore and the navy blue suit that hugged his skin.

"_Hello, Commander." _The man spoke, his voice gravelly and no doubt modified. "_In response to the alien incursion on Eden Prime by geth and ethereal forces, this Executive Council has chosen to reactivate the XCOM Project._

* * *

_**Universal Codex - Earth Defense Coalition - Celestial bodies of high importance in the Sol System**_

_Commonly referred to as the most heavily defended solar system in the galaxy, the Sol System is the most important location in EDC space._

**_Earth: _**_Earth is the most heavily populated planet in Sol, home to eight billion humans and the largest industrial base in human space. Earth is currently experiencing a golden age as the resource wealth from the colonies helps fuel the environmental cleanup of its atmosphere and improves the lives of its inhabitants, the effects of the Ethereal War having caused a decade long famine in the 2020's that saw a massive decline in the human population. Earth is still divided among nation states, though all are represented by the EDC. Advanced nations have contributed to the eradication of most genetic diseases, the prosperity of their citizens and the recolonisation of Africa, meaning that Earth is able to export and import large amounts of commercial goods and play an important role in the galactic economy._

_**Luna: **Error-Classified information._

**_Mars:_**_ The Martian world is developing exponentially and enjoys its status as the second most populated planet in Sol, with two billion people calling it home. Mars is humanity's military and science capital, serving as the primary headquarters for the EDC High Command and corporations like MarSec, Interstellar Security and ArmaCom manufacturing. Mars is also the host of the Prothean Archives in the Cydonia region, a heavily guarded facility off limits to civilians and unauthorised military personnel. Mars is rapidly greening, the terraforming efforts that began in the late 2020's giving it a breathable atmosphere, regular weather patterns, large oceans and a thriving ecosystem that is helping to increase the colonial prospects of the formerly red planet._

**_Pluto:_**_ Pluto is the host of the Charon relay, meaning that it is the one of the three most heavily defended planets in Sol, following Earth and Mars respectively. Pluto has changed little in the time since humans achieved interstellar flight, the only additions made to it are the Charon Special Forces Training Center and the scores of anti ship satellites that orbit around it, ranging from cruiser grade firepower to dreadnought grade installations.  
_

* * *

_Authors notes: Looks like things are about to get very interesting, with events being thrown right off the canon storyline of ME1. And by the way, who said anything about capping human tech? What gave you the idea that it's going to be capped? :D_

_I also forgot to include a description of what EDC forces look like. For visualisation purposes, EDC Marines look a lot like those found in Starship Troopers Invasion. Their ships are a mix between the aesthetic found in Terran battlecruisers in Starcraft and the Alliance vessels in Mass Effect. EDC battleships are a new class of vessel and look similar to Keldabe Battleships, though a lot smaller, less lighting and exposed sections and a more uniform hull. _


	5. Paranoia

The office was cool and had the look of a room devoid of a personal touch, used only for occasions such as these. That suited Shepard fine, he wouldn't be using it for long enough to even hope to change the feel of it, given the data pad he currently had in his hand held all his attention. The antiseptic atmosphere that the combination of both the lighting and the spartan amount of furniture exuded stood in contrast with the colourful amount of emotions the data was making him feel.

Reports were coming in of a strange looking ship accompanied by a fleet of unknown origin roaming the Terminus, traders and merchant fleets disappearing as they roamed the vast lawless expanse of the systems. Far too many for even the most efficient of pirates and far too few for a military force of a serious size to be responsible. The Eden Prime garrison had bloodied their attackers badly, and they were no doubt either on their way back to the Veil for repairs and reinforcements, or they were searching for new targets.

That made Shepard uneasy.

The sudden revelation that he was to be the point man for the newly reactivated XCOM hadn't done much to lessen the burden of the Eden Prime disaster, but it had served to instill some confidence in the fact that if the rapidly souring situation went any more south, there was at least one organisation that could handle it.

He'd been mulling over several leads that the Coalition Intelligence Service had been forwarding to his secure comm address regarding Saren. Their sources having been bolstered by the slowly growing intelligence sharing with the Spectres and the salarians, they'd reported sightings of geth forces establishing bases, defense stations and routes of supply in the Attican Beta and Maroon Sea clusters, as well as possible sightings in the Armstrong cluster, though nothing concrete had been reported as of yet. The last was related to the second report he'd been reading regarding points of interest in proximity to the bulk of where the sightings had been reported.

Noveria, in the Pax System was what interested him the most. The foremost independent site for scientific research, corporate excess and mercenary outfits had been flagged due to Saren's heavy investment and oversight in the Binary Helix corporation, renowned for their skirting of several laws regarding genetic modifications.

The entire corporate facility was one vast, sprawling arcology that went kilometers into the planet's atmosphere, if the vids were anything to believe. A population of hundreds of thousands of corporate employees and the HQ of dozens of morally questionable megacorps would no doubt make for an interesting time for anyone living in the corporatocracy.

Still, he was distracted by the fact that he was now in the employ of an organisation that was a legend among humans, once it had been revealed the part it played after the records had been, for the most part, declassified. Hell, working for Sawyer was both a worry and a relief, the former because he tended to solve a problem by applying boot to ass, while the latter was because every problem he was faced with was solved _by_ applying boot to ass.

The Admiral had already begun cobbling together various support elements and generally cutting through red tape with an axe regarding equipment and weapons, requisitioning several heavy cruisers and destroyers for the fleet now granted access to Citadel space. There were limits to what he could procure, however.

Though the specifics were still being decided by the Council and Udina, there were points that the former was absolutely not going to budge on. Turian animosity at his previous actions in the traverse had been dampened somewhat by the fact that Saren had betrayed everyone, but old grievances still restricted the size of the fleet allowed military access to under twenty.

The asari and salarians had also put their foot down regarding allowing EDC assets unrestricted access to a portion of their space, attaching an as of yet undetermined Spectre to oversee the operation. All three had unanimously agreed however, that the Admiral was absolutely forbidden from bringing along a dreadnought.

Shepard had seen his reaction to that last little detail, itself requiring an entire conversation to adequately convey just how livid Sawyer had been. Still, the _Normandy_ had been assigned to Task Force XCOM, with Shepard riding shotgun under Anderson and serving as it's recon element, scouting out an area and handling low intensity targets before calling in the big guns once they found something.

Already the requisitioned ships were heading towards the Sol System for upgrades and other enhancements such as additional crew and enough ground equipment and Marines to outfit a battalion. The _Normandy_ and _Odin_ themselves set to head off in little under twelve hours.

He grabbed his cup of coffee and took a sip of the black liquid, his other hand reaching another report. New gear, coloured tan and olive drab instead of the custom blue and gun metal grey of all EDC uniforms and armour were sprawled across the screen. The swiftness at which the new equipment was being changed, ordered and prepared made him suspect that the Executive Council had been prepared for a possible reactivation for quite some time. The fact that they were set to receive the new T4B Devastator armour that was only just being delivered to Marine units made him grin ever so slightly.

The T4B was a halfway mark between MEC's and Marine hardsuits and successor to the earlier T3B design, encasing the wearer in an armored exoskeleton that augmented strength, reflexes and speed, in return for sacrificing a small amount of the wearers agility. The design looked heavy, tough and highly modular, with angular armoured plates and the pilot protected inside a thick armoured shell. A perfect mobile fire support platform.

"_Commander Shepard, please report to the secure chambers on level twenty nine, Commander Shepard to level twenty nine."_ The voice of a VI echoed from the speakers above and Shepard set down the caffeinated drink and re-encrypted the reports, saving them to his omnitool as he hustled out of the room towards the embassy's elevators._  
_

The central plaza was abuzz with activity, people coming and going while armed guards patrolled the corridors and walkways as well as the constantly arriving and departing aircar traffic. The announcement of XCOM's reactivation had been kept a secret known only to those from the _Normandy _crew and Sawyers staff, but the flow of sudden logistical requests and reports had everyone facing a doubled work payload.

Shepard pushed past them and into one of the six elevators ferrying people all along the skyscraper. He keyed the room number and felt the slight downward pull of initial acceleration. It was quick and quiet, a stark contrast from the ones on the Presidium, though this one had commercial ads playing in the background, something about elcor performing hamlet. No doubt a soon to employed method of torture by all the ethically dubious factions of the galaxy.

The elevator chimed and he strode out into a hallway lit up by large windows overlooking the rest of Shalta Ward. Of course, the windows were deceptive in appearance, the reality being that all he was looking at was a projection of the urban environment via various cameras mounted onto the armoured exterior, itself reinforced by the vastly upgraded kinetic barriers powered by the embassy reactor. Couldn't risk some anti human fanatic taking a shot with a sniper rifle or directing an aircar filled with explosives into the vulnerable interior.

Shepard stopped at the end of the hallway, stepping atop a platform which promptly engulfed him in scanning beams and non lethal radiation meant to fry any potential listening devices on his person, kindly sparing his omnitool and submitting it to a digital scan instead. Seconds ticked by before the platform signaled he was was clear to proceed, and he made his way through the now open dual set of blast proof doors and into the vast sprawling office of Ambassador Udina.

Mercifully, the diplomat was occupied in a Council meeting back on the presidium, leaving Shepard to admire the office itself. It was extremely expansive, a single conference table of rich dark wood and intricate patterns carved into its base dominated the right half of the room while an outstretched semi circular dome platform dominated the other.

The dome protruded out of the side of the skyscraper and appeared to be made entirely of glass, given how even the floor was transparent. No flicker of a camera feed showed on any part of it, meaning that it was either extremely subtle and specially designed, or it really was reinforced glass, no doubt protected by multiple layers of defenses. The sound of the door behind him caused him to turn, meeting Admiral Sawyer's armoured bulk just a few feet from where he was standing.

He saluted, and Sawyer returned it as he came closer.

"You make good time, how have the reports been grabbing you?" Sawyer asked, driving the conversation straight to business.

"I think I could get better information from GNN, but the new supply manifests are a nice surprise." Shepard replied, thinking back to the new equipment awaiting them back on Mars.

"Given a good day the EIS can tell you which end of a gun the bullet comes out of, but that's not why I'm here." Sawyer said, making his way to the end of the table and interacting with a previously hidden console. The room suddenly darkened and the central section of the conference table folded into itself, a holographic projector bringing up a galaxy map with details on fleets, worlds of interest, colonial borders and the Citadel itself.

"Since you're going to be working for me, there are a few things you should know, and its still new to me as well, so consider it homework for the both of us." Sawyer said as the hologram morphed into a new image. Shepard looked it over, recognising it from a history class long ago that it was a recording of initial talks with the Citadel that ended the Shanxi incident.

"Firstly, XCOM has been reactivated twice before, the first-" The hologram shifted to display the archives on Mars. "-when we first found the prothean data eighty years ago-" The facility was large, with several sub buildings supporting a large, low profile bunker complex and protected by dozens of antiship guns. "-The second was when we met the birds." The images disappeared and coalesced to show the initial ground invasion of Shanxi, the swift counterattack by the Second Fleet and finally the orbital bombing of Antirum by the Fifth. It hadn't been pretty, EDC forces had responded with barely restrained anger, blasting through into Hierarchy space.

"Secondly, since we've made the aliens practically piss their pants at the thought at us having warships near their colonies, we've been asked to take a look at things on the political side of life." Sawyer said.

Shepard had noticed that the admiral hadn't swapped out his combat armour for something slightly less imposing. The suit making him look like he was always anticipating someone to start shooting, even in the embassy. _Especially_ in the embassy.

"The EDC and the Council don't get along very well. That's a given considering how much we screwed them over to get a place in their little club. In response we get trade and jack shit in terms of support regarding pirates, batarians and the Terminus." Sawyer said, shaking his head.

"So we make the Council a little hot under the collar by dealing with it." He smirked "Little things like assaulting and seizing pirate havens and planets, deploying fleets near the Terminus in response to their occasional temper tantrums and by fortifying the shit out of our colonies."

"Claiming territory in the Terminus so that the Council have a vested interest in us not being the instigators of a galactic war." Shepard remarked.

"Exactly. It also makes them think twice about dismissing our case whenever Udina comes to them for whatever. The perks of joining aren't many, but we make do." Sawyer laughed.

"I still never understood why we did join, we'd probably have been far better off staying unaligned with them." Shepard remarked. Humanity had given a lot and seemingly had little to show for it other than commercial trade and painfully slow technology sharing. An entity such as the EDC could have been fully independent and free of alien bureaucracy, not to mention a hell of a lot less restricted when it came to dealing with the batarians and now the geth.

"We're xenophobic but not stupid. We aren't strong enough to stand up to the sheer numbers that the Council can bring to bear, no matter how advanced our tech is." He made that last remark with some distaste, admitting the fact was a sign of hubris that many humans seemed to lack. "Joining the Citadel makes us a part of the galactic support structure, allows us to study their tactics, economies, long term goals and thought processes more effectively and gives them a hell of a lot more to lose by going to war with us."

"And lets them do the same. I didn't think that that politicians would actually go for it." Shepard said. Political parties such as Terra Firma hadn't made the move easy, a lot of people had lost their jobs after opponents of the merger had launched sweeping campaigns against "individuals corrupted by alien influence". The fact that such a historically self serving line of creatures had been able to see past their own noses and accept an offer as vast and loaded as the one that had been presented was hard to believe.

"That's why it wasn't left up to Parliament, just the Exec's. Right now the Council is helping, barely, but they are. Things may seem hopeful for future cooperation but the the truth is that the Council and the EDC are allies of convenience at the moment, nothing more. Remember that when you take command of the _Normandy_ and start dealing with whatever Spectre they slap you with." Sawyer said, reaching for the command that reactivated the lighting and killed the holo display.

"Wait, in command? What about Captain Anderson?" Shepard replied. He wasn't seriously believing that he would be given command of such an advanced warship when one of the most decorated special forces officers in the EDC currently commanded it.

"He's being reassigned, bumped up to take command of the SOCOM contingent that's about to start hitting the Veil before we move in and clear house. That leaves you in charge." Sawyer stated flatly. Shepard took a moment to let the new information sink in.

"Anything else I should know about, Sir?" Shepard said half curious, half worried.

* * *

"Citadel Control, this is CSV _Jewel of Centauri_ requesting an approach vector and berth, over."

_"Confirmed, _Centauri,_ wait one."_

"Roger that, Control."

"Centauri_, our arrival logs show you aren't due for another six hours."_

"Control, our drive core has been fluctuating erratically. Star maps didn't show any other port in the immediate area which could perform repairs and we didn't want to chance a core overload."

"_Confirmed, proceed to dock sixty six on Zakera Ward, flight plan is being transmitted. Do you require emergency services to meet you there?"_

"Affirmative. The core shielding hasn't been breached but our inertial dampening systems have malfunctioned, several passengers were injured in one of the fluctuations and we have a lot of people reporting flu like symptoms."

"_Copy that. Be advised that Dock Security will meet you there as well but you will not be permitted to enter the station before decontamination procedures have been carried out."_

* * *

The aircar was quick and spacious, but most importantly of all, inconspicuous in the vast sea of similar vehicles that were currently floating above the vast gleaming spires of Zakera Ward. Which was good because within the next five minutes, he and the human who had so eagerly volunteered to help him assault the large permadocked cruise liner known as _Chora's Den_ would be would be shot at by the sizable contingent of security that Zakera's crime boss Fist had employed.

Garrus Vakarian adjusted his optical display and double checked his Enforcer assault pistol, cycling it to it's standard slug throwing configuration. Light bounced off his avian features and he turned to look at the human, Jenkins being his name if he remembered it correctly. He was young but enthusiastic, the only reason why he was even allowed a place in Citadel law enforcement, let alone authorized to apply for C-Sec's Special Response division was because through some miracle, he'd actually managed to a perform somewhat decently in his two years as a beat cop before being allowed to apply.

And now Garrus had roped him into assisting him with the misinformation that all applicants to Special Response went through an assessment mission of some sort.

Of course, Garrus didn't actually need him, his tag along being a requirement by Nihlus since he wasn't _technically_ a Spectre yet. But that little detail hadn't stopped him from following a lead from his girlfriend when Fist's men had come to her clinic and began trying to shoot up the place. Several well placed shots to their kneecaps and other non vital areas along with a two hour interrogation without prior medical attention had led him back to the crime boss. Funny that even though he didn't like humans all that much, she had been something. . . else. What they and she had said had interested him greatly.

Fist had taken someone, a quarian, and had expended a large amount of resources to ensure that it happened smoothly and without interference. Someone was shadowing his operations, someone with pull in the higher ups that had stopped C-Sec from arresting the bastard and that just pissed him off. More than likely someone with so much dirt would have to be the Shadow Broker, but he wasn't sure of that yet.

Now, however, an interesting tidbit from one of the captured men had revealed that Fist had disregarded his former employer for something far more lucrative. That little detail was apparently why the usual stone wall that met an arrest warrant request for the human had been non existent when Garrus had asked for one to be put through by one of his C-Sec contacts, and why he was now just two minutes away from carrying it out.

"So, Jenkins, tell me," He said, turning back to the human. "Do you really think you have what it takes to join Special response? I mean, they're _the_ guys everyone wants to be in C-Sec, what makes you so special?"

"Hey, I'm just as qualified as anyone else!" The human blurted out at the challenge. "Definitely more than an asari or salarian, I was a Marine before joining C-Sec. I can handle myself."

"Hmm well certain people seem to think so, I mean that's why you're here." Garrus said, having fun with the human's naivety.

"Damn right. I'm ready for this, I've wanted this more than anything since I joined." Jenkins admitted.

The honesty in his tone and words made Garrus feel slightly bad at the deception he was pulling. He made a mental note to go over the report he'd soon file to the Executor and mention, at the very least, Jenkins' enthusiasm. That was of course, if he survived.

"I like the attitude. Did you get briefed on the details?" Garrus asked

"Not really, just something about an arrest and possible raid. The only thing everyone kept saying was that I had to be crazy to go on an assignment with you." He replied nervously, constantly fiddling with his own Enforcer as the vehicle weaved in and out of traffic.

Garrus chuckled. "Well they'd be right to say that, but what is life without a little excitement?" He brought the aircar down into a lighter stream of traffic that led to an exit into Zakera's local transit lanes.

"Warnings aside, there are requirements and rules for passing this. . examination." Yes, that was the right word for it.

"Number one. Dying is an automatic fail." That being the most pressing and likely outcome for the rookie C-Sec officer who had just come off his second tour of Zakera and previously, Shalta Ward. Still, Garrus wasn't _entirely_ heartless, which was why he had ordered a decent set of armour and weapons for the human.

"Number two. Failing to do what I say, when I say it, is an automatic fail." He shifted the vehicle down towards a local traffic stream and armed the large amounts of explosives currently sitting in the back seat, a slight ping marking that they were active.

"Number three. Failing to carry out the required actions in the appropriate situation is an automatic fail."

"What do you mean by that, sir?" Jenkins asked, his helmet now on and giving his voice a robotic edge that did little to hide his slight nervous stutter.

"It means that you need to pull the trigger when the bad guys start shooting at you." Garrus said, flexing his mandibles and shifting the car to autopilot as he turned to his omnitool and ran through the necessary steps required to slave the aircar to the device.

"But, but it's a night club! they wouldn't start shooting in there with all those people!' Jenkins protested.

"Jenkins, if they don't break out a rocket launcher the moment they spot us, I'll make you a Spectre."

* * *

The cargo hauler was quick and spacious, but most importantly of all, inconspicuous in the vast sea of similar vehicles that were currently floating above the vast gleaming spires of Zakera Ward. Which was boring because he had hoped for someone to at least start shooting at him if they even knew who he was. Urdnot Wrex sighed at the amateurish lack of security and foresight and primed the explosives in the large cargo space towards the back of his seat. The explosives and vehicle had come as a package deal from Barla Von, but he'd taken the time to make sure that the sly little volus had actually had his men prime them right, given his reputation for employing large amounts of vorcha with questionable intelligence.

Thankfully, the priming mechanism had been properly wired, if incorrectly labeled, and the Elkoss Combine hauler had had it's ID easily supplemented with false (but authentic looking) tags that would last more than long enough for him to fulfill the hit on Fist. The aircars passing by began to disappear as he descended down towards the CSV _Chora's Den_, the hauler surprisingly responsive for its age.

The thirty year old ship had been bought by the crime lord little under five years prior, after he had arrived on the Citadel five years before that and began carving swaths through the established criminal hierarchy. Deciding that his former HQ in a cheap gentleman's club no longer suited his tastes, he'd bough the former small time liner and converted it into one of the few high profile attractions the racially mixed Ward had to offer.

An attraction that Wrex was set to raid, explode and otherwise vandalize for a few hundred thousand credits. Pissing off the Shadow broker had been a very poor career decision for the human, and a very profitable one for Wrex. The generous advance fee was why he had done a bit of pre-operation shopping and treated himself to a heavily modified Claymore shotgun and a blood red variant of krogan Hoplite armour, minus the helmet and plus a jump pack.

He preferred to see the enemy through his own eyes, to feel their skulls crack as his head plate smashed through their weak heads. A cathartic experience like that couldn't be had with a helmet covering his head. Sure it was dangerous to do so if he was meant to assault a group of asari matriarchs or raid a space station where decompression was a distressing possibility, but Fists men were amateurs compared to what he'd faced in the past. Plus, the look on everyones faces when he kicked in the door with a ton of explosives strapped to a five ton hauler would be priceless.

The vehicle came down even lower down into the wards, over the docks where row upon row of ships sat idly as their crews and dock workers sifted through their cargo, engines humming and mass effect fields overlapping to cause a nauseous feeling for whoever was nearby. _Chora's Den_ was the only one with its own row while ramps built specifically to connect both the docks and upper levels fed people to a platform connected to the ship itself.  
Coming from the tip of the station, where the lengthy arms ended, he only saw what was happening on platform closest to him, which was to say, nothing.

People were probably filing in on the other side, given that all the people who actually had money to spend on the exorbitantly priced "refreshments and atmosphere" naturally lived on the side closest to the presidium. That suited him just fine, less people in the way of his special delivery.

* * *

"Centauri, _what is your status? Sensors are showing you as four hundred kilometers out from the Citadel and accelerating."_

"Roger that, Control. We've had some incident with some of the passengers, some of our crew have reported their conditions to be worsening, we're trying to get them help as quickly as we can."

"_Negative, reduce speed and maintain assigned course. Rerouting tug units to assist."_

_"_Control, these people need proper medical attention and we don't know how serious their conditions are, _over_."

"_Emergency responders are already waiting for you, maintain assigned course and speed."_

* * *

The vehicle came down even lower down into the wards, over the levels where the Ward's primary markets and tourist traps were located. The neon glow of the business hub obscured Garrus' vision of the docks, no doubt filled to capacity as the bustle of trade never seemed to stop. They broke over the glow a few seconds later to see the newly refurbished crime lords ship surprisingly devoid of any activity on the loading platform. It wasn't all that unusual, the club only really kicked off at around eleven and it was barely after six local time.

The aircar closed the final few hundred meters before Garrus set it down on one of the landing pads, the slight thump echoing inside its interior. The gull wing doors deployed automatically, and the soon to be Spectre and tag along rookie stepped out into the self contained atmosphere of the docks. It stank of ozone and discharging drive cores while he swore he smelt the scent of roasting varren intermixed in the smells of the area.

The gull wing doors lowered down and he took in the the sight of the large permadocked ship. She was large for a liner, half a kilometer in length and no doubt retrofitted with the latest in interior design of both asari and Fists personal taste. That meant that alongside the exquisite artwork and intricately decorated dance floor, he could expect automated sentry turrets, a hundred or so armed guards and mechs and maybe even a litter of blood thirsty varren.

"Alright, Rookie, call it." Garrus said, unholstering his Enforcer and loading armour piercing rounds.

"Ah, what do you mean, Sir?" Jenkins asked, and Garrus noticed his helmet may have been a size too big for his head.

"You're on assessment, how do you want us to enter?" He asked.

"Well," Jenkins helmet obscured his features as they contorted while he thought. "We could always knock?"

Garrus looked at him and his mandibles twitched slightly. They then parted into a smile as he lit up his omnitool. The device shone bright even in the heavily lighted area as the turian manipulated its haptic interface. The systems in the aircar flared to life, bringing its mass effect core online and lifting it ever so slightly off the ground. New commands overrode the safeties and plotted a course into the navigational computer, the car swinging to face the duo even as they began ducking behind a loading crate.

"Knock knock." Garrus said, depressing the activation key on his omnitool.

The aircar ignited its thrusters, propelling the vehicle laden with military grade explosives forward towards the heavy duty doors that stood in place of a docking airlock. It cut through the air with a classic whine of blue note engines, smashing into the doors and cracking the ceramic entrance. Half a second later the explosives detonated, turning the entrance into a hellish soup of blazing orange flame, thick oily smoke and twisted metal. Pieces of debris rained down all around as the pressure from the detonation set the mass effect field of _Chora's Den_ off balance and shook the whole ship, while the turian and human duo advanced into the large broken hole that their handiwork had just opened.

* * *

The overpressure wave hit the hauler and temporarily overwhelmed its mass effect field, sending it swerving to the right as a large mushroom of orange flame sprouted from the side of the now wounded ship. Wrex cursed at the sudden development and activated his jump pack, leaping out the window atop wings of flame as the hauler careened towards the large bulbous section at the bow of the ship.

His armour compensated for the sudden activation and lowered his mass while the two square thrusters mounted on his hump allowed him to descend safely towards a small maintenance catwalk. The thrusters cut out, sending him into a roll as his shotgun deployed from its folded state, already in hand.

He skidded to a stop with all the grace of a rolling brick and watched as the life of the hauler ended, the large vehicle colliding with the side of the section that housed the guard quarters. The barriers on the ship were meant to withstand micrometeorites and small arms fire, not a massive aircar turned into an improvised explosive projectile.

They faltered and collapsed under the strain as the explosives detonated like an antitank missile, projecting the frame of the hauler like a scythe inwards. The thin armour plating collapsed and shattered as the heat melted compartments, incinerating a few of the now scrambling defenders and cleaved the entire affected floor in two. Two huge jets of flame shot of the hole where the hauler had crashed, sending debris directly into the Serpent Nebula.

Wrex laughed, activating his jump pack and shot off the catwalk directly towards the new entryway, the blood rage that ran through every krogan running through his veins, hot, but controlled.

* * *

Garrus and Jenkins reeled from the sudden second explosion, dropping to the floor as they entered the now flaming club section. Its decor was melted and blasted apart, with armour clad bodies cleaved into several pieces all across the room. His visor connected with the C-Sec servers and displayed the new flash alert to local patrol units and emergency crews to investigate the massive explosions. He marked the site as under investigation, per Nihlus' authority, meaning that the response forces would have to wait their turn.

He stopped looking just in time to see a man in bloody armour shaking his head and readying to fire a rocket launcher at the entrance. His instincts cut in as the missile shot out of its launcher, straight towards where the duo was standing. The two dived to either side, years of their respective military training allowing them to react instantly to the sudden threat.

Garrus hurled himself behind a broken pillar which had collapsed to the side, leveling his Enforcer at the contact as the missile streaked past. The missile detonated where he had been standing just a second before, the turian and human both letting loose bursts of hyper velocity death at the assailant.

The Enforcer was a new weapon offered to Spectres and was soon to be standard among the Turian Armed Forces, firing slugs that were similar in size to old chemical slug throwers but with the extra punch afforded to them by a mass effect weapons system. A dedicated minifacturing device converted the on board ammo block into more bullets where they would then be loaded with a specialised tip according to one of the three installed weapon mods.

Lengthy cool down periods and vastly limited ammunition supply were considered acceptable tradeoffs for the muzzle velocity and impact force capable of stopping, say, an EDC Marine or a rampaging krogan. The former's policy of vast protective measures and redundant systems meant that their armour was capable of withstanding far more punishment than a standard hardsuit, making the wearer infuriatingly hard to kill.

Thus, when Garrus Vakarian fired a round twice the size of nail with an explosive tip that would shatter walls and obliterate body parts towards the man who was now desperately reloading his launcher, it impacted with the force of a grenade, marginally slowed by the man's kinetic barriers before blowing apart everything above his shoulders. There was a wet _plop_ as the man fell to the floor in a bloody mess, his body not even realising he didn't have a head until a few seconds after he'd fallen.

"Called it!" Garrus shouted.

Several more mercenary's came rushing out from the engine section, weapons up and firing sporadically at the intruders as they began to bound towards the stern where the quarian was being held. Two of the hostiles fell as massive sections of their bodies were torn apart by armour piercing and explosive rounds while return shots pinged off of Garrus' barriers. Surprisingly, another of the guards fell to fire from Jenkins before the human ducked into cover, his nervous demeanor having morphed into an attitude of cool but shaky confidence.

Garrus slid in behind a fallen stage light, rising shortly after as he leveled his enforcer at one of the guards who had had the common sense to attempt a flanking maneuver. His arm disintegrated as a round detonated inside his armour, a second completely obliterated his left side. The common issue kinetic barriers the guards sported were used to stopping rounds the size of grains of sand, the huge ammunition currently cutting through them was only marginally slowed down by the resistance they put up.

Fists men were grabbing cover, the effects of the deadly weapons held by the intruder duo having already blown apart several of their comrades. They began returning effective fire, spitting high velocity death at the cover protecting Garrus. The turian readied a flashbang, hefting it over his shoulder and sliding towards another section of the broken pillar. The room was chaos, the grenade exploded and sent several of the guards clutching for their heads as their helmets failed to polarise and left them blind.

The noise was incredible.

Garrus hesitated for a second as the flash from the grenade dissipated, before turning out of cover and letting loose four shots in rapid succession. The rounds hit two of the stumbling guards, turning their bodies into slushy pieces of exploded meat. Jenkins had sighted two more, shooting the leg off of one while his other shot impacted a nearby wall and tore out its ceramic outer layer.

Smoke and heat smothered the entrance as Garrus sighted another guard, pumping two rounds into his side. The first failed to penetrate the kinetic barrier but detonated its explosive tip, sending shrapnel directly through the now weakened barriers and directly into his armoured chest. His armour held against the onslaught, but failed as the second round cut into his body just below his left shoulder, exploding and eviscerating his side.

"Jenkins, on your left!" The turian swung back, triggering the cool down on his weapon and switching to armor piercing ammunition.

The human swung, cutting down another guard with a double tap to his sternum, turning him into bloody paste. The instinctual training from being in the Marine Corps and then again in C-Sec had kept his nerves calm and his aim steady, affording him a fire discipline that the mercenaries lacked.

* * *

At one point, the guard had been scrambling for his weapon, trying to unfurl his Avenger assault rifle seconds before the half ton krogan had deactivated his jump pack and landed square on top of his chest. There hadn't been time to realise what had happened before his ribs had caved in, his organs were reduced to mush and his skull had cracked under the force of being used as an impromptu landing pad for the mercenary, leaving the guard to die with nothing but confusion running through his mind.

Wrex's shotgun barked at the sole remaining guard that had survived the explosion, dropping the turian with enough force to render his body unidentifiable. The interior was like a slaughter house, the guard section had housed the majority of their numbers, meaning that the walls were decorated a sickly spectrum of colour from the bloody pirouettes of various species sprayed all over from the explosion. Body parts and melted weapons were intermixed with charred furniture and smoldering electronics, the smell hitting him in one singular soup of destruction.

He started down the hall, triggering a boost from his jump pack as he crossed the cracked ceramic floor up onto the second level of the ship. The guards section had originally been used to house cargo before being retrofitted for its new duties, now it was a just a smoking crater. Its destruction meant that he'd have to hurry, the ships superstructure would likely not take kindly to the abuse that had been hurled at it, possibly even break apart under the strain.

Guards dropped as he made his way through the now ruined interior. Trinkets and body parts intermixed with the array of blown apart hull plating segments and occasional painting. Wrex was surprised at that more than anything, he hadn't taken the crime boss to be a collector.

A shot of blood red light hit him square in the chest as he rounded a corner, too fast for him to avoid. The searing beam ignored his barriers and cut into the ablative armour covering his chest, traveling through the various layers designed to boil away under intense heat before dissipating against his leathered skin. He snarled at the pain and ducked behind one of the various out cropping support frames that were dotted throughout the large hallway. Lasers? Not even Fist could afford that tech.

His gleaming eyes spotted the culprit and put to rest that preconception, an automated roof mounted gatling laser spat death at his exposed face and forced him back into cover. The quick glimpse that he'd managed had shown the the turret to be perfectly positioned to repel intruders, and advancing behind it were several encroaching turians and vorcha.

Mass accelerator and laser fire intermixed to cut into his cover, burning and chipping it away as he primed a disruptor grenade. Centuries of combat experience had instilled in him vast amounts of responses to situations like these, honed him into the leader of the Urdnot Clan and kept him alive against odds far less favourable than what he was facing. This was child's play compared to a Thresher Maw.

His omnitool shone and fired the rapidly fabricated grenade, the small orb aimed directly above the advancing guards and below the deadly turret. Static washed through their suits and into their automated systems, randomly polarising helmets, triggering weapon cool downs and causing kinetic barriers to wither out and cease functioning. The turret whined in protest, trying to fire as the Battlemaster let loose a shock wave of biotic energy, knocking the snarling vorcha and turians off their feet. Wrex smiled and let loose a burst which cleaved into the turret, cutting it in half before the krogan leveled out his shotgun at the flailing guards.

The vorcha had been quick, not relying on their suits as much as their comrades given that nobody in the galaxy valued vorcha enough to give them proper armour, and had let loose several bursts at the advancing krogan. He replied in kind, his shotgun barking in anger. Two of the vorcha dropped, felled by rounds that had gutted everything blow their sternum while another burst into flames thanks to the incendiary grenade he'd readied in his initial charge.

Biotic energy swirled around his huge mass of muscle and bone and shot out to engulf the turians who were now also recovering, the singularity hoisting them off their feet and leaving them helpless as they began to float above the floor. Wrex fired until his shotgun overheated, flipping the massive weapon, grabbing it by its massive barrel and pulling it back into a swing. The butt of the huge weapon smashed through the faceplate of a turian unfortunate enough to be close, collapsing it with enough force for the fragments of his skull to cut through his brain and force his head to bend at a sickening angle.

Wrex grabbed the now dead turians arm and swung his body towards a still floating guard, flipping his weapon again as the cool down cycle ended and watched in satisfaction as the dead projectile smashed another turian against a wall. His finger wrapped around the trigger once more, firing slivers of super accelerated metal into the three remaining hostiles, a different limb coming off each time as their kinetic barriers tried, and failed, to protect them.

* * *

"So why me, Sir? You could have anyone in the EDC practically begging to come and serve with XCOM. I'm not exactly someone who is. . . psychologically qualified for what you need." Shepard remarked, somewhat overwhelmed at all the new revelations that had hit him the past few hours.

Sawyer gave him a long hard look. Shepard had seen the same expression before, on the faces of Admiral Hackett and Captain Anderson when they'd interviewed him for the prospect of becoming the _Normandy's _executive officer. That same steely gaze was present in anyone who was busy weighing up constants and variables, determining the best course of action. For Sawyer, that usually meant whether to call in dreadnought for orbital bombardment, or whether to initiate a ground assault on an enemy position, so this was easy. He spoke a moment later, voice still gruff and hard.

"Shepard, you managed to stay alive and functioning when a Psy with power far beyond anything we'd previously encountered drove your whole unit insane. You held the line during the blitz on Elysium _and,_ you successfully led your team to repulse an ethereal assault when they had wiped out an entire Marine division on Eden Prime." Sawyer replied.

The Admiral crossed his arms, expression never softening.

"What do you think you've been doing this whole time, hiding behind your gun?"

Shepard didn't say anything. Akuze and Elysium had weighed heavily on him, both for what he did, and what he hadn't done. He'd lost friends on Akuze, good men and women who'd been turned into lab experiments by Cain for the two full days he'd held them captive, and then again on Elysium when the batarians had basically foregone all other targets in the Skyllian Verge and focused exclusively on the tourist planet.

"Well then we need to get moving, Sir, the ethereals and the geth aren't going to give us the time to play catch up." Shepard said, the vote of confidence from Sawyer helping to bury some of his self doubt.

"I know, but that's not what worries me." He said.

Sawyer grabbed a nearby data slate out of the many lying untidily on the exquisite wood table. It took him another second for his omnitool to go through the standard data exchange handshake with Shepard's own device, sending several after action reports for him to view.

"CIS reports that everything you faced on Eden Prime, save for the geth, matched up damn near perfectly with what the original XCOM encountered back in 2016. In all that time, they haven't upgraded their forces even a little?" Sawyer asked.

"They could be disposable troops? Utilised for their shock value? I know the chrysalids were damn effective at ripping through New Eden's garrison." Shepard replied.

"Hmm possible, though their ships were old as well, except for that dread and the geth fleet, and any psychological effect they could have had would have been negated by our standard Marine gear." Sawyer said.

The dreadnought had (reportedly) made the defense committee very worried. Something that could tank laser fire meant to gut the _Destiny Ascension_, the most powerful ship in the CDF and then go and land on a planet with little effort and annihilate concentrated pockets of resistance was something to be very, very worried about. If the the geth had spent the past few hundred years designing and manufacturing more of those monsters, then galactic space was in for a very bad time.

"The geth are unknowns in this," Sawyer continued. "But we've been on the horn with the quarians lately, they're making nice in the hopes that we include them in our march into the Veil." Sawyer said and the large sprawling hologram popped up to display a picture of the positively huge quarian armada. They may have been without a planet, but having the largest fleet in the galaxy had perks of its own.

"Williams has directed them to Bekenstein, since its more than likely we'll accept and start outfitting their ships with as many guns as we can." Sawyer finished, disabling the hologram.

"I know Bekenstein is heavily industrialised, but there's no way they can outfit that many ships in under a month." Shepard remarked.

"They won't have to. If they join us the quarians can leave their civilian fleet behind and join us with their heavies, which are a hell of a lot easier to outfit than their entire fleet. And besides, we won't be giving them-"

Klaxons sounded, the alarms killing the words on the Admiral's lips as everyone in the embassy suddenly went to the equivalent of general quarters. Marines moved to their ready stations, grabbing their equipment out of the numerous armouries scattered across the various buildings and in the embassy itself and began shuffling non essential staff to evacuation stations and shelters.

"Status report." Sawyer yelled.

"_Alert. Possible terrorist attack imminent. Zakera Ward docks have been compromised. Large scale explosions reported. C-Sec units responding."_ The annoyingly calm voice of one of the Embassy VI's responded.

"Details." Sawyer said again.

"_Two large explosions reported one minute and twenty seconds ago originating onboard the CSV _Chora's Den._ C-Sec units are currently establishing a secure perimeter as per the orders of Spectre Nihlus Kyrik."_

"Shepard," Sawyer said, turning back to him. "This is probably nothing. That being said, I want you to get your gear back and get in touch with Captain Vahlen, she's in command of Able Company. I'll instruct her to follow your lead. Get armed up and prepare to move out if needed."

* * *

The vorcha laughed, if only because of the fact that he was a second away from detonating the explosive vest currently strapped to his chest. A half second before he could, Garrus introduced his brain to the ships filtered air via his Enforcer, grabbing the vest with his left hand and holding the now dead guard close. The turian advanced up the spacious corridor, his approach supported by the cover fire of Jenkins and the body of the vorcha now sucking up bullets like a sponge.

His pistol barked, the armour piercing rounds blowing chunks out of hardsuits and slicing through walls with ease. The half dozen guards had elected to make a stand behind several deployable barriers, and were now dug in to an extent that annoyed Garrus. he ducked back into cover as the fire concentrated on his line of advance, cutting into his meat shields and began to deplete his barriers. The automated protection system soaked up the grains sized rounds as the turian ducked behind an out of use forklift.

"So, Jenkins, how are you liking this so far? Anything tickle your fancy?" Garrus asked.

"Shouldn't we be focused on-" Garrus heard a grunt and a small explosion. "-on the guys shooting at us?" Jenkins yelled.

"Hmm true, C-Sec is going crazy that we aren't let-" Garrus stopped and frowned. "Hang on, I'm getting another call."

"Wait what?"

He ignored the protest from Jenkins and ID'd the caller, making him chuckle ever so slightly at the name. Of course it would be him, no one else had the number to his private comms.

"Nihlus, what a pleasant surprise." He said.

"Vakarian. Care to explain why half of Zakera Ward's docks are on fire and why the Executor is currently screaming at me to rescind my wave off order?" The Spectre asked, and Garrus could just visualise the pose he was making from the tone of his voice alone.

"I'd say that's a bit of an exaggeration, maybe only a third of them are actually burning." Garrus replied.

The Spectre sighed, long having accepted the somewhat immature method of doing things that his protege seemed to revel in. Perhaps if he'd gone into C-Sec like his father wanted and learned the rules and procedures that went along with arresting a wanted suspect he'd show a little more restraint. Having been recruited for the Spectres straight out of the turian Marines, most of his after action reports tended to make liberal use of the word "explosives" and phrases such as "unnecessary use of overwhelming force."

"Get it sorted within the next ten minutes or I let C-Sec through." The line went dead as Nihlus hung up, not in the mood for further banter.

Garrus frowned but accepted the deadline. Nihlus was usually a hardass and not one to let a personal touch get in the way of what needed doing. Things like suicide aircars were in his case, frowned on. He'd probably just stick to a tank or a Mantis gunship and carve out an entrance that way.

"No sense of style." Garrus said to the now dead line.

The turian grabbed the now dead vorcha and began unbuckling his suicide vest, grabbing the detonator once he was done. The device glowed green indicating that the explosive device was still reporting a ready status. Garrus holstered his Enforcer on its hip mounted magnetic clamp and retrieved his Tempest submachine gun. The boxy weapon unfurled in his hand with the signature sequence of beeps, triggering his onboard reserve capacitors as it came online.

"Jenkins, cover me!"

The Corporal's response was to let out a barrage of grenades and explosive shots while Garrus calmly strode out into the open, overcharged shields glowing a healthy blue as incoming fire weakened and stray shots pinged off the barriers. The tempest rattled off dozens of rounds, slivers of super accelerated metal cutting through barriers, armour and soft vulnerable flesh. The guards shouted over the roar of fragmentation grenades and were distracted by Jenkins as Garrus advanced. The Turian calmly turned and swung, his barriers at half strength by the time he flung the explosive vest in his opposite hand directly into his opponents midst.

He dove for cover behind a broken part of a shattered wall, triggering the explosives as his avian form slipped into safety. There was a hiss of pressure and noise before heat washed over his head, bathing him in warmth as the bright orange glow incinerated the underpaid mercenaries. The ship bucked and groaned in protest at the abuse, metal bending in ways it was never meant to as the spacious corridor was deformed by the explosion and sections fused together.

He counted to three and rose, Tempest up and scanning. The corridor was ablaze and he held no doubt the Executor was about to have a stress attack from yet _another_ explosion. He advanced forward, wordlessly signalling Jenkins to do the same with a command issued from his HUD. The duo advanced in silence, their weapons ready for anyone who survived the blast and still had the capacity to take issue with their presence._  
_

The explosion had saved them the trouble of deploying a breaching charge on the far wall which lead to the cargo bay according to the schematics Garrus had pulled from the C-Sec database, the door now glowing molten and hot after suffering abuse its builders never intended it to endure. The guards had died messily, several flash fried body parts and blood that was somehow still wet decorated the entrance to the cargo hold.

The area they had strode into was vast and cavernous, devoid of any decorations or third party additions that they had seen throughout the rest of the ship. It took a little while for Garrus to realise that there were two levels to the cargo bay, with the two of them on lowest one. His eyes scanned for a second before he spotted an access lift for heavy vehicles and cargo crates.

"See anything move?" Garrus asked.

"Nothing. Not a thing." Jenkins replied, Enforcer still scanning the bay.

"You think all the guards that were in here were killed back there?" Garrus asked, slipping behind a safety barrier, Jenkins following shortly behind. The Corporal took another look over the area before replying.

"For an area this big, not likely. I'd have at least three more squads guarding this area." He said.

"Think they're up there waiting for us?" Garrus asked, pointing to the lift and then the second level.

"Definitely." The human replied, switching his Enforcer back to its armour piercing module.

"Mechs, machine guns, turrets and and a varren or two?" Garrus asked sarcastically.

"Most likely." Jenkins answered.

Garrus brought out his second Tempest, keying it to phasic rounds while switching the second to disruptor ammunition. The two freshly inserted modules glowed green in readiness a half second later, and the two man assault team began moving towards the access lift.

"Bring it on."

* * *

"Centauri,_ status report."_

_"_Previous orders confirmed, Control, Dock Sixty Six is in sight, requesting tug support for final approach_."_

_"__Copy that, assigning tug group Attican to you."_

_"_Affirmative, we see them coming up on screen now."

* * *

Wrex's rampage through the guard detachment hadn't taken long, the sight of him beating a vorcha to death with the dismembered leg of a turian relayed through the internal camera network had been enough to take the fight out of the more serious defenders, making them easy kills for a well placed shot or two. A few more laser turrets were the only serious threat he had faced, branding him with several scars that would no doubt mark this little operation in his memory for far longer than it had any right to.

_"You think you can just come in here and shoot up my place, Wrex? You think you can get away with this?"_ Came a voice from above. Wrex recognised the drawl as that of his target, and he just chuckled.

"Taunting over loudspeaker, Fist? Don't you have anything better to do like shooting yourself in the head and saving me the trouble?" He replied, scanning the room for any possible ambush.

_"Fuck you, Lizard, there ain't now way you're getting in here and even if you could, there's a nice little surprise waiting in here for ya."_ Fist replied confidently as the krogan advanced cautiously through what looked like an extended airlock compartment.

"What, you wrapped up your balls so that I can sell 'em afterwards for a few credits?" Wrex replied.

A sudden hiss caught his attention and he turned, leveling his shotgun at the disturbance. A decontamination vent was the source and he relaxed, ears and eyes scanning for anymore of the hidden turrets that the crime lord had positioned throughout his ship with alarming frequency.

"Fuck you," the human repeated. "Come and get me you piece of shit."

Those turrets had been bulldozed just like the rest of the mercenaries, the krogan cutting a swath through to the bow like a two legged tank. His advance had been halted, however, when he encountered one obstacle he could not simply blow apart with ridiculous amounts of shotgun rounds.

A MarSec FNV blast door, capable of withstanding fire from main battle tanks. The material would be more than strong enough to resist every explosive charge he'd brought with him, potentially halting him dead in his tracks.

So, Wrex did what no _average_ krogan would do when confronted with a locked door.

He bypassed it. Explosively.

The door itself could withstand any of the numerous breaching charges that he'd bought before the mission, but that wasn't the case for the wall next to it. With his helmet now firmly covering his face and head plate, his suit pressurised as he placed several charges on the wall to the right of the blast door. Wrex considered triggering the explosives while his back was turned, but decided against it, anchoring his magnetic boots to the hull after taking several steps backwards and triggered the explosives.

The directional charges blew apart the hull section, ripping apart mass effect arrays that projected the protective sheath of mass lightening energy and exposed the whole interior to the vacuum of the Serpent Nebula. The krogan calmly stepped out through the new opening in the ship, allowing his body to float in a controlled manner, his jump pack thrusters twisting his body to face the part of the bow directly ahead of the blast door.

He landed with a _thud_, his impact felt rather than heard in the airless exterior of space. His eyes scanned the length of the ship while he readied more charges, the whole length of _Chora's Den _was twisted and ablaze, the flames dissipating once they hit the vacuum and ran out of air. The krogan approved of the destruction in one of his numerous hearts, but his singular brain told him that the ship was dieing fast, the numerous C-Sec aircars and a singular turian cruiser patrolling above giving him another reason to work fast.

He backed off of the hull to a comfortable two meter distance before triggering the breaching charges. The hull noiselessly caved in, exposing the interior and letting the controlled atmosphere inside to vent violently. He counted to five, triggering his jump jets to full burn as the last number exited his thoughts, crashing through the now non pressurised cabin like a cannonball on fire.

A lone mech that hadn't been sucked out into the abyss took the full force of his shotgun in its chest, recoiling as it flopped to the ground in what Wrex would have mistaken as surprise, if a mech could feel anything besides its programming routines. His jump pack allowed him to land with enough force to crack the ceramic floor, his knee leaving a clear imprint in one of the tiles before he rose, his eyes greeted by the sight of his pray.

Fist.

The exact moment he'd spotted him, the crime boss leveled a weapon that looked distinctly EDC issued. A heartbeat later his thoughts were confirmed as a beam of red light impacted him squarely in the chest. The krogan sported custom ablative armour, affording him somewhat decent protection against directed energy weapons with twenty micro layers of heat dispersing material meant to minimise laser fire damage.

Fist's weapon cut through eighteen of them before Wrex rolled out of the way, leveling his shotgun at the human's hand and pulled the trigger. The massive weapon recoiled at the discharge of metal, the kickback enough to shatter a non krogan hand as it spat anger at its target. Fists barriers weren't much better than his guards, the shotgun punching through, destroying the weapon and turning his hand into a mangled stump spewing blood into the the air where it coagulated and floated about in the vacuum.

Fist screamed, the helmet over his head muffling his agony to that of a pathetic wail, while the sound was picked up by Wrex's point to point receiver. Wrex's suit automatically moved to seal the near breach as its wearer moved towards the now writhing Fist. He holstered his shotgun and cracked his knuckles, putting his foot down on the bloody stump hard.

The human screamed almost unbearably.

"You should really invest in better defensive planning. Your pretty little door may be tough, but the wall holding it isn't." The Krogan remarked, the squirming human held firmly under his boot.

"Now, you're going to tell me all about your little deal with Saren, and for every wrong answer you give me, I'll take a toe or a finger. Once you've run out of those, well. . . " He left the threat hanging in the air.

To his surprise, the human chuckled. The sound of quiet laughter became audible as the ships systems began to compensate for the breach in the hull and strained to plug the gap, diverting power from other systems and causing the lighting in the room to flicker. Atmosphere hissed back inside, pressurising the room once more.

"You think you're good, don't you Wrex? You think I'll tell you shit?" Fist replied in between audible coughs of blood, his voice losing all hint of fear or pain. "They can do far worse than what you can."

"Fist," Wrex said, completely crushing the human's seared stump and causing him to cry out. "I really doubt that."

"You won't have to." Fist replied.

The human's helmet began to glow green, its form melting around Fist's head and causing Wrex to try and wrench it off after he realised what was happening, stopping only as his armoured fingers began to glow. Even through his helmet filters, the krogan could smell the stench of burnt flesh and brain matter as the human's head was cooked beyond recognition into a molten slag of blood and ceramic. He cursed at the development and lamented the lack of information he'd gotten out of his captive.

He scanned the room, eyes settling on the holographic interface placed on Fist's desk. The office would have been equal parts opulent as well as tacky if it hadn't been for Wrex's explosive entry exposing everything inside to the black. His fingers settled on the keyboard and he synced the device to omnitool, copying everything over and then destroying the optical storage drive with a demolition charge. The room shook as it went off, the walls cracking further as they took yet more abuse.

He made his way towards his entry point, checking his jump pack and fuel capacity before ordering his onboard computer to calculate a flight path towards the nearest dock level. A slight burn to break free from the ships mass effect field and another to orient himself towards his landing area would be all he'd need to escape, his optical camouflage cloaking him the rest of the way to avoid C-Sec and anyone else interested in asking him questions.

His exit was cut short as an aircar covered in C-Sec colours and mounting a very imposing quad cannon armament rose in front of him, the blue and red warning lights shining bright in his face.

"Freeze!" A voice sounding distinctly turian shouted out.

In between the moment the aircar had appeared and the command had been issued, Wrex had calculated his options to escape, none of them would be quick enough for him to avoid being shredded by the imposing quad mass accelerators and the no doubt itchy trigger finger of its operator. Annoyed, the krogan raised his arms in surrender, a second aircar appearing behind the first as he did so.

"What took you guys so long?" He asked.

* * *

The Mech had been the hardest part of the guards assembled to face them, luckily a well placed shot to its optical targeting center with a phasic round had sent it into a drunken frenzy as it began firing at anything that moved and a lot of things that didn't. The guards had reacted as well as could be expected for two bit mercenaries looking to shoot a gun and not actually fight something, namely shooting at the mech and getting shot right back. Garrus and Jenkins had taken advantage of the chaos, ducking behind several pieces of cover as the mech drew most of the return fire, picking off anyone who had concentrated on them instead.

The technique had served them well, the cover fire had allowed them to slip by the opposition and into the ship's holding cells, while Jenkins had sealed the door behind them to prevent any pursuers. The two advanced down the long cramped corridors, Enforcers constantly pointed towards any possible piece of enemy cover. The sound of their footsteps echoed loudly, too loudly for Garrus's taste.

He wordlessly signaled to Jenkins to cover him as they sighted a large door marked in graffiti as the interrogation chamber. The turian silently slid up next to it, activating his omnitool and let the STG issued hackware cut through the meager firewall locking the door and barring them entry. Jenkins stacked up on the opposite side, and the two exchanged a look of readiness. A chime signalling the hackware's success chirped before the door slid open and the duo instantly stepped inwards.

The sight that greeted them was nothing like what they had been expecting. The room looked like a torture chamber better suited to a medieval dungeon than a modern starship. Dried blood decorated the floor and several instruments of torture were spread out throughout the room, mounted on the walls like trophies. The center was covered in boxes of various sizes and a singular chair located in the center of the room. A chair that was host to one elegantly decorated quarian.

The two of them moved forward with their weapons held high, towards the quarian who Garrus had realised was female, if her form fitting suit was anything to go by. She was chained to the floor by several restraints with her head face down towards her lap. Several machines pumping unknown substances into her suit were placed beside her and the visor on her face plate was cracked along its left side.

'Jenkins, sweep the room, I'll check up on her." He ordered.

The human nodded and moved towards to one of the areas shielded by boxes while Garrus began unhooking the devices next to the quarian. His omnitool identified the substances as illicit, no doubt meant to serve as a safe way to interrogate her when just beating on her could rupture her suit and infect her if she came in contact with the atmosphere. The crack in her helmet meant that someone had gotten impatient with that approach.

He scanned her vitals and they thankfully came back as strong enough for her to be alive. He reached through one of his suit pouches and withdrew several immunoboosters and the dextro equivalent of adrenaline, feeding them through one of the access points on her arm. The drugs inside her system would have taken a lot out of her, but a dose of medicine would keep her stable until the EMT's arrived.

"Vakarian to C-Sec." He said as he activated his comm. "We have one critically injured quarian and a whole lot of hostiles down here. Proceed with sweep and clear."

A confirmation rang in his ear and his omnitool showed the eager C-Sec units rushing in to dock with the retrofitted liner. Scores of heavily armed members of the Special Response Force began filing in through various parts of the ship, eliminating any stragglers who resisted and arresting those who didn't. Garrus had Jenkins guard the door once the latter had finished sweeping the room, certain that it was clear of any hostiles or nasty surprises left by its former occupants.

Gunfire could be heard even through the heavy door that was now sealed against anyone who wasn't their reinforcements. The sounds of grenades and what had to be the detonation of a mech core rumbled and shook the room ever so slightly, diverting his attention back to what was important. THey waited for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of gunfire and for the immunoboosters to take effect. A murmur from the chair brought Garrus' attention back to her.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" He asked the still groggy quarian as she regained consciousness, kneeling down close to her visor.

A swift headbutt to his face sent him clutching his head in pain, a curse passing through his lips. It was superficial, no blood seeped out of his nose but it had hit hard enough to hurt, his attacker now thrashing violently against her bonds, hoping to break free and escape.

"Calm down, we're with C-Sec, we're here to get you out of this place." He said in both an annoyed and comforting tone. The girl ceased thrashing at the sound of Citadel Security but the name only served to maker her suspicious.

"How do I know this isn't some trick-" she sputtered. "-That you aren't really Fist's men sent to make me talk when I think I'm safe?" She hissed through her suits voice filter, her accent rich and definitely belonging to someone who was with the Migrant Fleet and not some breakaway flotilla.

Before Garrus could answer, the door behind them hissed open, causing he and jenkins to raise their weapons. Their IFF tags marked the arrivals as friendly, as if the blue and grey armour that was plastered on everything C-Sec owned wasn't enough of a confirmation. Ten heavily armed troopers, primarily turian with a minor mixture of asari filed into the room, weapons lowered yet still ready for further hostilities.

"Somebody call for backup?" One of them asked.

Garrus turned toward the quarian, his mandibles parting in a smile.

* * *

First responder Mordekai Saltus mentally counted down from ten. The decently sized liner _Jewel of Centauri_ slid into the docking bay with all the grace of a lumbering whale about to beach itself. The pressureless platform he was standing on had forced him to wear his white and orange hardsuit, its center covered in a red cross that marked his role as that of a healer, not a soldier, just like the other two dozen medics standing around him.

His was the job of tending to the sick and dieing before they were passed on to more specialised individuals, to prevent them from journeying to the next world on their way to the hospital. Other, less critical injuries were his forte, like dealing with mildly serious physical injuries, though he hoped to never have to see anything similar to the vehicle pile up that had happened the week before.

The Liner was preceded by the several tugs expertly manipulating its mass towards the airlocks and emergency entrance that he was ready to enter, the oversized mass effect arrays blanketing it in a stable field. A single one could have pulled a cruiser with its oversized core, but several were needed for precision maneuvers like the one taking place.

His mental countdown ran out a second too early, the docking clamps grasping the ship slightly after when he had anticipated, annoying him ever so slightly. The electromagnetic clamps sealed tight and held the ship in place, the tugs lingering just long enough to ensure the seal was good before they began to wave off, towards another task that needed doing elsewhere on the Citadel.

A rectangular airlock corridor extending out from the large bulbous craft, landing with a mute thud on the platform. As he and the rest of his compatriots hurried forward, he found the comparison to a whale was fitting given its form. The oval shaped hull with its rear wing mounted thrusters was a relatively common shape among cruise liners, but usually they were far larger than the one in front of him.

They filed awkwardly into the airlock chamber, the door behind them clamping shut as the long corridor was pressurised and synced to the internal pressure of the ship. It took a few moments before the system light burned green instead of red and the second door in front of them opened.

"Alright, Teams A and B to the aft sections, take care of anyone there that you find." The soft spoken yet authoritative voice of his response supervisor came through their helmets as they moved into the ship proper. "C Team, concentrate on the center and D, you're with me."

They split up into teams of six, Mordekai went with A Team, towards the furthermost part of the ship. They passed strangely empty cabins on the way there, the various members of the Team peeking inward or banging on doors to make sure no one was inside, opening them when they thought there was. The liner only had the capacity to haul little over a hundred and fifty individuals, a quarter of those being staff. Further medical responders would be on site soon, once he and his fellow first responders had assessed the urgency of the situation.

B team diverted towards the area marked on their map as the dining room while A Team trudged on to the rearward lounge. They were greeted by several human crewmen, clad in the white uniforms that were part of their company attire. The smart outfits were stained with blood and what would usually be unkempt and immaculately arranged hair was a mess of conflicting directions. Mordekai thought they looked like they'd just been through a twenty four hour shift without a break, which may very well have been the case.

They hardly spoke, instead ushering the Team through the deck towards the area marked as the main lounge on his HUD. The small company that owned the vessel didn't skimp out on the luxury department on their vessels, everything looked expensive and fragile, with just a hint of taste to go along with the rich decor.  
The lounge was full of people of all races, young and old, all huddled together in the center of the room as if being there would shelter them from some imaginary storm.

Mordekai's eyes panned up as he reached for his medpack to begin treating those who were wounded, stopping as he saw that everyone was surrounding a single figure dressed in robes that were totally alien in design to anything he had ever seen. His hands stopped just as his hands unclipped his suitcase of supplies, falling out onto the floor as he ceased moving, his gaze on the tall and extremely slender figure becoming impossible to break.

"_A Team, we can't establish comms with C-HAS, our signal just cut out. Can you try raising them on your end?"_ His comm chirped with the request. But, like him, the other members of A team were still and unmoving, looking directly towards the robed alien. Mordekai realised as the message ended that no one in the room had made a sound since they'd entered the lounge.

"_A Team, do you copy? If you can, we've made contact with some of the crew and are heading towards the commercial chamber." _He ignored the message. His world became distorted and lacking in colour. He tasted blood in his mouth.

His peripheral vision showed other figures coming into his field of view, huge crystalline bipeds the colour of obsidian and covered in plates that seemed to slither along their massive forms. Glowing yellow light seeped out of their chests, illuminating the faces of those who they passed by. They weren't alone, creatures with heads far too big for their frail looking forms scurried along the floor next to them, poking their legs in a way that would have seemed cute, if he could even remember what cute meant.

He tried to move, his arms feeling like they were encased in tons of concrete while he lost all feeling in his legs. Discipline from his time in the Marines kept his fight or flight instincts in check, yet it couldn't keep down the abject horror of what was happening. Several of the smaller creatures crept up to the captive passengers, brandishing devices which they promptly injected into their abdomens. The areas began to bleed and glow green, blood covering their chests as the glow dissipated after a few seconds. He wanted to cry and scream, to do _something_ other than stand and watch in unavoidable disgust at the sight of people being controlled.

His mental thrashing echoed throughout the psychic stranglehold louder than any other, the robed figure responsible turning towards him, head covered in a face plate devoid of eyes that still somehow stared into his being. He stopped and simply thought. . .

_Why?_

His response came quickly.

**__****_¬objectives¬deliverymethods¬infiltrateCSec¬eliminatetarget¬needdistraction¬you¬_**

___Who are you?_

___****__****__¬irrelevant¬youwererequired¬_

_For what?_

_****__****__¬distraction¬drawawayattention¬needdeliverymethod¬you¬bombdeliveryvehicle__****__****__¬successrequired¬_

_You're making us into. . . bombs?_

___****__****__¬correct¬_

_______You think we'll just let you do that? That we won't fight you?_

___________****__****__¬yourcomplianceisnotrequired¬_

* * *

**_______________Universal Codex - Relay 314 Incident_**

_______________Human expansion had entered its second phase after the discovery of the Prothean Archives on Mars in 2101 when a turian patrol group encountered the half dozen exploratory ships belonging to the Shanxi EDC Garrison attempting to activate a dormant mass relay in 2157. Human weariness of alien attack after the Ethereal War caused an almost immediate breakdown in communications after the turians fired a warning shot towards the explorers, due to the reactivation of a relay being classified as a crime after the Rachni Wars, causing the human group to return fire._

_______________The presence of powerful laser weaponry and a seeming defiance in the face of their warnings led to destruction of the explorer fleet and a request for reinforcements by the turian patrol to the colony of Antirum. Over the next month, the Antirum Garrison attempted an invasion of the planet of Shanxi, having backtraced navigational data from the human ship wreckage. The turians were initially able to overwhelm the defending fleet and gain orbital supremacy, deploying a mechanised division and several supporting infantry companies to assault Shanxi's population centers. The ground campaign proceeded for two weeks with heavy casualties as human forces used their technology to successfully bog down advancing turian forces with guerilla tactics and stubborn urban resistance._

_______________Admiral Kastanie Drescher lead the Second Fleet to liberate Shanxi, completely destroying the dozen strong turian battle group in orbit three weeks after it had arrived. Due to turian forces being unable to successfully push deep into urban zones and with most of the areas they occupied being abandoned by fleeing civilians, the Second Fleet bombarded the invasion force from orbit, inflicting on average ninety percent casualties before turian General Hartek Solaris formally surrendered to General Jonathan Williams.  
_

_______________Interrogation of turian prisoners provided Admiral Drescher with the location of Antirum, which she, along with the Third and Fifth fleets, assaulted one week later. EDC forces abandoned the concept of a ground campaign, opting to bombard surface targets from orbit over three days after eliminating the defending orbital garrison, suffering moderate casualties in return. The arrival of Citadel representatives in Shanxi space brought about a ceasefire as the EDC Executive Council along with the rest of humanity is introduced to the galaxy at large, marking the end of the Relay 314 incident.  
_

* * *

_______________Authors Notes: Sorry for taking so long, I hope to get the next chapter out faster._


End file.
